IDF Spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, said on Thursday that a video from the interrogation of a Hamas terrorist was erroneously published, in which the name of the abducted, Matan Zangauker, 24, was mentioned alongside details of his abduction without the family's knowledge. Rear Admiral Hagari apologized to the family for this mistake.
This is one of two terrorist interrogation videos that were first exposed by the British "Daily Mail" and then published in the Israeli media. In the video, the terrorist Abdallah Radi, 18, confesses that he, his father, and his uncle raped, murdered, and abducted women and men to Gaza on October 7 and then talks about the moment of Matan's abduction, who was kidnapped to the Gaza Strip with his girlfriend Ilana. Since then, she has been released from captivity.
In the interrogation, the terrorist told how his father, he, and his cousin cruelly raped and murdered a woman: "When I went out, I saw him hiding among the trees, so I caught him. It happened when Hassan and my father arrived. Hassan wanted to attack him because he verbally attacked him. He gave him a blow to the back and I stopped Hassan and told him that this man is mine. I took the guy and told him I needed to go home, he said okay. I went with him and we settled down, we talked a bit."
The interrogator asked for the hostage's name, and the terrorist answered Matan. "I asked him where he's from, and he said he's from Ofakim, that he's a tourist here," he added. "When we left, two people came with a Toyota jeep. There were about 15 people there, they wanted to take Matan from me forcefully, I asked 'where are they from' and they answered 'from the city.' The rest said they were not ready to say until they identified me. They took him from me by force and put him in the jeep, and took him from there to Gaza."
According to Rear Admiral Hagari, "The information presented in the investigation was not presented to Matan's family before its publication due to a human error. We investigated this error overnight and on Friday I personally spoke with Matan's parents and apologized to them personally."
According to Hagari, "This mistake occurred inadvertently. This is a mistake that came to be because we are fighting in a war to ensure that the world does not forget what happened on October 7. Despite this, we must make sure that the families are the first to know the information about their loved ones and only then given to the media and from there to the public."
The Zangauker family responded: "Last night, Einav Zangauker was informed that the video testimony published, there is testimony about the abduction of Matan Zangauker. Einav did not know of this and certainly did not approve the publication of the testimony itself."