anonovo2025 How an Anguished Mother Became Netanyahu’s Fiercest Foe

The Israeli poet Aharon Shabtai published a poem last fall that begins with the words “Instead of Moses.” Instead of Abraham, it continues, instead of Buddha, Jesus, Socrates and Tolstoy,

Instead, instead of everything,

I see by day,

And see at night,

I see in a dream, and on waking,

In bed, in the shower, and on the road,

In shops

Ms. Gray’s 14-year-old son, Colt, is being charged as an adult for murder in the deadliest school shooting in Georgia’s history. He is accused of bringing an AR-15-style rifle to Apalachee High School in Winder, Ga., earlier this month, killing four — two students and two math teachers — and injuring at least nine.

In Tel Aviv and in Jerusalem,

Only the face

Only the face

Of Einav Zangauker.

The face of Einav Zangauker. How to describe it? The drooping eyes. The dark pits in which they rest. The toothy mouth that tugs downward. And the gaze. The gaze of Einav Zangauker — whose son, Matan, was captured by Hamas on Oct. 7,66br.com 2023, and remains a hostage in Gaza — is one that has seen the other side. It’s a gaze of anguish. Of torture, rage, sleeplessness and steel. It’s a gaze that the entire Israeli public has come to recognize, because Einav — she is now known by her first name only — is the country’s most visible representative of the hostage crisis and its fiercest opponent of the war.

Listen to this article, read by Gabra Zackman

On a recent Saturday evening, Einav dragged deeply on a cigarette. She was standing in the plaza outside the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, which Israelis have renamed Hostages Square, shivering in a thin black cardigan and skinny jeans — her legs like two twigs wrapped in bark. She has lost 25 pounds since the attacks, and her frame was that of a girl, though her face looked older than her 46 years.

“He will come home!” a woman called out to her.

“Thank you,” Einav replied softly.

Behind her, a giant screen projected the words “Get Them Out of Hell.” A clock showed 490 days, 12 hours, 43 minutes and counting. That morning, Israelis all over the country gathered for watch parties to celebrate the fifth scheduled release of hostages in five weeks. The releases until then were joyful — the hostages seeming relatively healthy — but this time the sight was ominous. The three men paraded onto a stage in central Gaza by their masked captors appeared skeletal and frail. Health professionals advised the families not to press them for information, but details began trickling out. One of the men was shackled for the entirety of his time in captivity; he did not walk or stand for 16 months, according to the Israeli media. All three men were starved, occasionally going days without any food whatsoever. They were subjected to interrogations during which they were tied upside down, beaten and burned with scalding objects. To see the state the men were in, Einav said, was “a catastrophe.”

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