‘I survived by connecting with my Hamas captors’ says freed Israeli hostage - The Jewish Chronicle

Omer Shem Tov, who spent 505 days in Hamas captivity – over 400 of them in the tunnels of Gaza – was given a hero’s welcome last night when he came to meet the Jewish community in the UK.

The 23-year-old, who was in London with JNF UK to attend the premier of the film Home: Omer Shem Tov Speaks*, shared with an audience of around 1,000 people how he had survived both the physical and mental hell of captivity by praying, holding off eating the tiny amount of food he was given for as long as possible, and by forming a rapport with his captors.

Omer Shem Tov and film director Yoram Zak, in conversation with Dana Zohar of JNF UK[Missing Credit]

Taken hostage by Hamas terrorists from the Nova music festival on October 7, along with his friends, brother and sister Itay and Maya Regev, Omer was initially held above ground with Itay. But when the siblings were released during the first ceasefire in November 2023, Omer was moved to a tiny, dank cell below ground, where he was held in isolation behind bars.

“When Itay left, stress, anxiety and a feeling of loneliness kicked in,” he recounts in the documentary, which is in Hebrew with English subtitles. “When they put me in the cell, I had an asthma attack. I said I needed an inhaler, and they got me one.”

The only form of light was a flashtorch, which lasted for two or three hours a day. Omer would disconnect it to make it last for longer, so he could use the light while eating. Apart from that, he sat in complete darkness. “Total darkness, no shadows, nothing. Blindness.”

Omer Shem Tov is given a hero's welcome in London[Missing Credit]

In the film, where director Yoram Zak uses special effects to recreate the environment Omer was kept in, he is asked what he was given to eat. “Two pitas a day and salty water, then one pita and then half a pita. I became very skinny and could see my shoulder [bones] and ribs. Then they gave me one biscuit and water, which I would try to wait two to three hours to eat.”

One day, his captors gave him a marker pen. “I drew the beach and the sun on the wall” – memories of his life back home in Herzliya. “Then, one of the terrorists came in and erased it.”

After 50 days, Omer was moved to a larger room, still underground, and able to shower. “It was the first shower I had taken since I was moved underground. I scraped the dirt off my body like it was soot,” he says in the film.

While he was given more food on his arrival there, the terrorists would watch him eat, all the while calling him “a Jewish pig”.

Omer revealed that one day, he planned his escape, knowing that the only way would be by killing his captors. While they were asleep, he picked up an AK47 in the room but then put it back down. Asked by Zak why he hadn’t gone ahead with his plan, he replied: “I was scared the gun would jam.”

To survive, his instinct was “to connect with my captors”. One of the first things he did when he was abducted into Gaza was to ask the terrorist his name and to tell him his. “The terrorist said that he knew the name of the Israeli singer, Eden Ben Zaken, so I started singing her song Rose Queen. When I stopped, the terrorist carried on.”

Omer Shem Tov, his father Malki (left) and film director, Yoram Zak[Missing Credit]

After being moved to the bigger underground cell, “my goal was to get close to the commander. There was an unwritten agreement that if I help you, you will be nice to me.” Omer would do the washing up, the cooking, and even some electrics and plumbing. During a lighter moment during the evening, revealing how, at times, the extraordinary and the mundane would collide, he said that before he was released, his captors had asked him to explain how things in the kitchen worked.

Asked if he had seen the terrorists as human, Omer said: “No , I didn’t… Even when there was a bit of humanity, they always messed it up. They would give me a bottle of water, and then they would show me videos of what happened on October 7. I can never forget, and I can never forgive what they did on that day. It will be forever burnt into my head.”

In captivity, while his life was “depressing”, he said that he never lost hope, and, in fact, his faith became stronger. In the film, he says: “I would sit down and talk to God… I would say: ‘Thank you for letting me breathe, for the food I get. Guide me, strengthen me and keep my family safe.’”

Telling the London audience that his relationship with God was now “the best”, he said: “I ask him: ‘How are you Hashem?’ I feel him every second of the day…Once [when I was out of captivity], I didn’t talk to him for two weeks. After I spoke to him, I smiled so much because I had missed him.”

(l-r) Dana Zohar of JNF UK, film director Yoram Zak and Omer Shem Tov sing the Hatikvah with the audience after the film screening of Home: Omer Shem Tov Speaks[Missing Credit]

During one of the most poignant parts of the evening, Omer revealed the moments just before he was released from captivity, along with Eliya Cohen and Omer Wenkert. “The guards came into the room. They gave us soldiers uniforms to wear, blindfolded us and brought us to the exit of the tunnel.

"I could hear Eliya Cohen saying Shir Hama’alot. I started to sing it, and the other two joined me. So, the three of us were singing loud and proud at the exit of the tunnel in front of the terrorists. It was a moment I will never forget.”

Since being released, he is still “traumatised” from hearing IDF bombardments while in captivity. “Now, when I hear jets in the sky, I freeze.” He also sometimes finds it hard to sleep, but, besides that, “I am handling things okay”, finding solace in music and nature. “After being in a tunnel for 400 days, the sun – it’s a wonder. The wind – it’s a wonder.”

Now “on a mission” to bring home the 50 remaining hostages, he said that if he could send them a message, he would say: “’Hold on, a little bit more.’

"After 200 days, I had a dream that my mum came to me and said: ‘You have to wait, but when [freedom] comes, it will be a lot more exciting and a lot more fulfilling.’ I would say to the hostages: ‘Hold on. You will come back a better man than when you went in.’”

Home: Omer Shem Tov Speaks, directed by Yoram Zak

* Omer’s story featured on Uvda (Fact), a powerful Israeli current affairs programme on Keshet 12, which is run by veteran journalist Ilana Dayan

The JC was the media partner of JNF UK for the film screening

Main photo: Julian Coleman

Topics:

Omer Shem Tov

Hostages

JNF UK