About 450 days ago, Ilana Gritzewsky was set free after spending 55 days in captivity in Gaza, but she says a part of her never returned home.   “My body returned, but my soul remains trapped,” Gritzewsky said while speaking at an event at The Heritage Foundation on Tuesday. “I always feel that I am not really free. I cannot forget what happened, what I experienced.”  Gritzewsky was at home with her boyfriend, Matan Zangauker, on the morning of Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas terrorists entered their community.   Gritzewsky jumped out of the window of her house, attempting to flee from the terrorists, but was caught and dragged from her hiding place by her hair, beaten, and driven on the back of a motorcycle into Gaza. The terrorists touched her, and that is when Gritzewsky says she remembers shutting down. She believes the only reason she was not raped that day she was taken hostage is because she was on her period.   “They took away my humanity, piece by piece,” Gritzewsky said.   Gritzewsky is originally from Mexico and moved to Israel as a teenager. She met Zangauker while they were both working on a farm in Israel. The couple dated for about a year and a half before they were both taken hostage.   Since her release, Gritzewsky has advocated for her boyfriend’s freedom, and the release of all the other hostages.   With Monday marking 500 days of captivity for Zangauker and the remaining hostages, Gritzewsky says she prays for the day she can stop counting and finally be reunited with her boyfriend.   “We must bring all of them home now. Every additional second that passes is one second too much,” she said.   Gritzewsky shared her story during the Heritage event, “500 Days in Captivity: Hostage Families Speak Out.”   Family members of three other hostages who remain in Gaza also shared their stories and called for the freedom of their loved ones.  Gal Gilboa-Dalal and his little brother, Guy Gilboa-Dalal, were attending the Nova Music Festival on Oct. 7, 2023. Gal Gilboa-Dalal spent 10 hours running and hiding from terrorists that day. When he was finally rescued, he learned that his little brother had been taken hostage into Gaza, where he remains today.   The “healing process” cannot return in Israel until all the hostages are returned, Gal Gilboa-Dalal says.   Like Gal Gilboa-Dalal, Ilay David has also dedicated much of the past 500 days advocating for the freedom of his younger brother, Evyatar David.   Evyatar David was also attending the Nova Music Festival when he was taken hostage. While Ilay David said it feels likes he and his family are waking up to a horror movie every day, he said there is hope as hostages have been released following the inauguration of the Trump administration.   “It gives us hope to see that kind of commitment from President [Donald] Trump,” Evyatar David said, referring to Trump’s direct demand for Hamas to release the hostages.   On the 500th day since the attack, Hamas announced it would release six living hostages Saturday, the last of the living hostages to be released during phase one of the current ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.   Originally, only three hostages were going to be released on Saturday, but Israeli official said new terms of the release were reached during talks in Egypt last week.  Additionally, Hamas announced Tuesday that it would release the bodies of four deceased hostages, including the remains of mother Shiri Bibas and her two children, Ariel and Kfir.   Hamas claimed in November 2023 that Shiri Bibas and her children were killed in an Israeli airstrike on Gaza, but never provided any evidence to support that claim. Husband and father Yarden Bibas was released from Hamas captivity on Feb. 1.   The Bibas family issued a statement Tuesday saying they are “in turmoil” over the announcement from Hamas. The family says they have not “yet received any official confirmation” from Israel regarding the status of Shiri Bibas and the children.   Israel says Hamas will release the bodies of an additional four deceased hostages next week.   Phase one of the ceasefire between Hamas and Israel is slated to last until the first week of March, and Israel and Hamas are expected to begin indirect negotiations this week on the details of phase two of the ceasefire.   Steve Witkoff, special envoy to the Middle East, said during a recent interview on Fox News that phase two is slated to include the release of 19 IDF soldiers, all of whom are thought to be still alive, including Israeli-American Edan Alexander.   Witkoff described phase two of the ceasefire negotiations as being more “complicated” because it “contemplates an end of the war, but it also contemplates Hamas not being involved in the government and being gone from Gaza. So, we’ve got to square those two things.”  The post ‘They Took Away My Humanity’: Hostage Freed by Hamas Calls for Boyfriend’s Release appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Editor’s note: This is a lightly edited transcript of today’s video from Daily Signal Senior Contributor Victor Davis Hanson. Subscribe to our YouTube channel to see more of his videos. Hello, this is Victor Davis Hanson for The Daily Signal. There has been a maelstrom of controversy about Vice President JD Vance. Last week he spoke at the Munich Security Conference but he chose not to speak just necessarily about security issues—i.e., NATO contributions—but rather the larger problem with Europe itself. And that controversy still continues today. Basically, what JD Vance said was: We have to get along—Europe and the United States—we are twins of the Western tradition. But, my God, it’s getting hard for you. You go after and persecute people who object to abortion. You take American tech companies and try to censor them, even when they conduct interviews in the United States. When Elon Musk talked to President Donald Trump on X, you wanted to—you being the collective of Europeans—censor it. When an election didn’t go the way that the Left wanted in Romania, they wanted to stop it. In fact, others have said within Germany that the Alternativ für Deutschland—if they were to be a majority party in the next election—they might cancel it. So, he said, “This is not behooving of us.” They went crazy. Oh my gosh, the defense secretary, the minister of Germany got right up, “This is unsustainable, this is unacceptable.” But nobody said it was untrue. It was absolutely true. The so-called libertine, free-loving, open society of Europe is very closed. It’s a one-party system, in the sense that they only allow left-wing views. It’s to the left of the radical American Democratic Party. Germany should be very careful, and also should Europe, because the subtext of that speech wasn’t explicitly voiced but it was there. And his critics said, “Oh, he’s just talking to the MAGA people at home.” He wasn’t. He wasn’t talking to the French ministers. He wasn’t talking to the MAGA people at home or the American people in general. He was talking to the people of Europe and they support him because we are going to see possible radical changes in the German government, some Eastern European governments, but especially, the French government, and maybe the British government the next time. And they’re going to be national populists. And he was telling them, “You have a right to stand up.” And do what? His criticism was multifaceted: Close your borders. Legal-only immigration. Up your defense budget. Allow for free speech. We’ve gone through the Biden nightmare at home. We know what it was like to go hard left. Don’t go that way. Deregulate. Cut taxes. Free up the economy. And they got very angry about that. It was almost as if they knew that was true but they could not admit it. But here’s the subtext I’m talking about. Germany and Europe better be very careful. Germany’s fertility rate is 1.45. Europe’s, in aggregate, is only about 1.5. We’re at least 1.6. We said years ago in 2014, “NATO, pay 2% of gross domestic product and hold your own and pull your own weight.” And now it’s 10 years, 11 years later and we still have nine NATO countries that will not do it, especially Germany. They only spend 1.5%. Their energy is four times ours. And BMW and Audi and Mercedes cannot compete. Why? Because they’ve gone full Green New Deal, so to speak, and shut down coal, nuclear, natural gas plants. They have 16% of the population was not born in Germany. France is almost as bad. And they do not assimilate, intermarry, and integrate like we do. They are looking at this huge Russian-Ukrainian war on their borders where maybe 1.5 million people have been killed or wounded or missing. And they’re critical of the United States that pays the greatest proportion of the NATO budget and who puts Europe under its nuclear shield. And they are damning us. They run a $240 billion surplus with trade. And how do they do it? Because we’re lazy and unproductive? No, we are more productive and we have cheaper power rates and a more open economy than they do but they have asymmetrical tariffs. Add it all up and Germany is in a very dependent place. So is Europe. JD Vance was trying to speak truth to power, so to speak. And they didn’t want to hear it. And what’s going to happen in the next year, people in Europe are going to rise up—these populist movements. And I think what he’s telling all of them, this could be another start of a wonderful relationship because these fossilized, ossified governments do not reflect the people of Europe. We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal. The post JD Vance’s Message to European Leaders: Listen to Your People, Don’t Go Hard Left appeared first on The Daily Signal.

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A Washington state man expressed his frustration at a vandal who was caught on video spray-painting the word "Nazi" on his Tesla car. Tim Tees told KGW-TV that he was watching the Super Bowl with his son when someone vandalized his electronic car in front of their Northwest Portland home. He found the vandalism after watching footage from his surveillance camera. 'Look, dude, if you want to protest, I'll go and protest with you.' The video shows a person with a face covering walk to the car to vandalize it with red paint and then walk across the street. "They spray-painted my car," Tees said. "That happened in broad daylight. I mean, he was brazen."Many on the left have abandoned their previous love of the Tesla brand after its owner Elon Musk publicly supported President Donald Trump ahead of the 2024 election. Musk was then tapped to head the Department of Government Efficiency to root out fraud and waste. Tees said that he did not support Musk and was likely politically aligned with the beliefs of the vandal. "I get the people are upset about Elon. I'm upset about Elon, you know. I bought the car before Elon went crazy, hence the bumper sticker," he said. The sticker read, "I bought this before Elon went crazy." The car is now in storage and Tees is thinking about selling it despite admitting that he really likes the vehicle. He went on to say that he would have rather protested with the suspect and donated the money he spent to clean the car to a liberal cause. "What I would say to him is like, 'Hey, look, dude, if you want to protest, I'll go and protest with you,'" the man concluded. "The $255 I spent to clean my car, I could have used to donate to the DNC, or you know, to a number of other organizations that could have done something a little bit more constructive."Video of the vandalism as well as the interview with Tees can be viewed on KGW's news report on YouTube. Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

Prosecutors say that a Michigan mother killed her 9-year-old son, and official documents show that the boy had told Child Protective Services that she wanted to kill him. Brandee Pierce was charged with killing Zemar King after his body was found in a shallow grave by police investigating a report from a neighbor that something like a human leg was sticking out of the ground. 'It is alleged she purchased a shovel. She bound him by tying his hands and feet together.' The Wayne's County prosecutor's office said King's cause of death was smothering and neck compression.Documents obtained by WXYZ-TV show that the boy told CPS officials that his mother beat him with a belt and wanted to kill him just six months before his death. The shocking report says that CPS had investigated complaints against Pierce four different times. In the first incident from 2015, she reportedly admitted to using marijuana and alcohol in her first trimester, but she claimed that she had done so before deciding to keep her child, which was King. In 2019, King was four years old when he was found alone in the lobby of an apartment building and told police that he “did not know where he belonged." Police said that CPS denied the complaint. In 2021, King was five years old when he was found "alone and crying" in a locked vehicle for more than 90 minutes while the outside temperature reached 78 degrees. In April 2024, Pierce went to an emergency room reporting that she was suffering from anxiety and depression. She told CPS that “she had a breakdown and felt herself going into a panic attack." Pierce said she had been evicted from a motel, was completely out of funds, and her car had been repossessed. She said she and her children would be sleeping on the street. The child told officials that his mother had allegedly beat him with a belt, choked him, and said she wanted to kill him. Records show that CPS found “no preponderance of evidence of physical neglect" and gave Pierce pamphlets about finding community support. Police say that she killed the boy six months later in October. “It is alleged she purchased a shovel. She bound him by tying his hands and feet together," said Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy. "She then put him in this hole and covered him with dirt." Pierce was arrested in Georgia after allegedly leaving her other child in a locked car with feces and a deflated air mattress, according to police. WXYZ said the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services had no comment on the story after citing privacy laws. The victim's uncle set up a GoFundMe account to help pay for the boy's burial. Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

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