Tel Aviv
CNN
—
Newly freed Israeli-American hostage Edan Alexander provided new information about Israeli hostage Matan Zangauker, confirming that he is alive but suffering from significant weight loss, abdominal pain and mental distress, according to Zangauker’s family.
Zangauker was held by Hamas alongside Alexander from October 7, 2023, until Alexander’s release last week, Zangauker’s family said in a statement. The family said it learned about Zangauker’s condition following Alexander’s release.
Zangauker, 25, has been in “severe mental distress” in recent months, according to information disclosed by his family, and has been refusing to speak or eat, even after Hamas began giving Zangauker and Alexander more food in recent months.
The family also said that Zangauker, one of at least 20 living hostages still held in Gaza, is suffering tremors due to a degenerative muscle disease that runs in his family.
The family said Zangauker underwent an “emergency medical intervention” in captivity due to persistent abdominal pain.
The new information prompted the latest call from his mother for the Israeli government to end the war and secure the release of all remaining hostages in Gaza.
“Since I learned about the torture and the physical and mental suffering my son is enduring, I haven’t been able to eat, and I can barely breathe. How can a mother survive knowing her son, who suffers from a degenerative muscle disease, is being held alone in captivity? Can he even stand on his own? Hold a glass of water? My heart is breaking over what he’s going through,” Einav Zangauker said in a statement.
“I don’t know if he can survive much longer.”
“While they are living in hell, the Israeli government is bombing the area where Matan is being held. The prime minister can no longer say he didn’t know or hadn’t heard. Continued military pressure and the isolation Matan is experiencing will lead to his death. The Israeli government must end the war and put a real initiative to bring everyone back on the table,” Zangauker said.
On Tuesday, the Prime Minister’s Office said that a senior negotiating team in Qatar will return to Israel, while a working-level team will remain “for the time being.”
The negotiations took place following US President Donald Trump’s visit to the Middle East last week. Netanyahu made clear when he sent the Israeli team that he would not end the war in Gaza.
The Hostages and Missing Families Forum blasted the Israeli government for the failure to reach an agreement, saying, “Israel does not have the privilege to abandon the negotiations.”
In a statement on Tuesday, the forum said, “For 19 months now, the supreme moral obligation of returning the kidnapped men and women, down to the last of them, has been marked by continuous and searing failure. There will be no partial, minimal, and certainly no complete victory until this goal is achieved.”
