Public lifeעינב צנגאוקר

Einav Zangauker

Einav Zangauker is an Israeli activist whose son Matan was taken hostage to Gaza on October 7, 2023, and who campaigned for the return of the hostages until his release in October 2025.

born 1979Campaigning for the hostages' returnMother of hostage Matan ZangaukerProtests at HaKirya in Tel Aviv

Born: 3 December 1979

Einav Zangauker was born in 1979

Einav Zangauker lives in Ofakim. She worked as a higher education coordinator in the education directorate of the Ofakim Municipality. After divorcing in the 2000s, she raised her son Matan and his two sisters as a single mother.

On October 7, 2023, Matan and his partner Ilana Gritzewsky were abducted by Hamas from their home in Nir Oz. Zangauker then began working with the Hostages and Missing Families Forum. Ilana was freed in the November 2023 hostage deal.

She met Foreign Minister Israel Katz in November 2023 and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in January 2024. From February 2024 she worked with activists from the protest against the judicial reform and called for new elections. She protested regularly at the Begin Gate of HaKirya in Tel Aviv, where she was attacked by passersby and hit by a police water cannon.

In February 2025 she flew to Washington to appeal to President Donald Trump to see the hostage deal carried out in full. Matan was released under the Gaza peace plan and reunited with her on 13 October 2025.