Ilana Gritzewsky was released from captivity more than a year ago, but with her partner and dozens of other Israeli hostages still held in Gaza, her fight is far from over.

"My soul is still there," Gritzewsky, 31, told AFP in an interview at the Tel Aviv headquarters of an Israeli campaign group pressing for a deal to rescue captives seized during Hamas's attack on October 7, 2023.

Recounting the horrors of the unprecedented attack on southern Israel that triggered the Gaza war, and the abuses she had suffered in captivity, Gritzewsky said she cannot rest until her partner, Matan Zangauker, is back.

In December, Palestinian militant group Hamas released a video of Zangauker, 25, who was abducted along with Gritzewsky from their home in Nir Oz, a kibbutz community near the Gaza border.

Seeing the Hamas video of her hostage partner "took me back to my period of captivity", said Gritzewsky, recalling "the screams, the voices, the smells, the fear, and the helplessness".

The couple were among 251 people seized by militants........

© Al Monitor