A young Israeli, aged 23, shares his harrowing tale of being held captive for over 500 days after a deadly Hamas terror attack in 2023.
Since gaining his freedom, Omer Shem-Tov has had the honor of throwing the first pitch at Boston’s Fenway Park and meeting President Donald Trump. However, despite his newfound liberty, Shem-Tov is easily reminded of his traumatic experiences.
“Everything seems so unreal,” he expressed. “I can be sitting on the beach, feeling the sun’s warmth on my skin, and then suddenly, I remember, ‘Thank God I’m finally home.’
It’s been nearly three months since the 23-year-old was released, after 505 days of Hamas captivity.
Finally, he was reunited with his family after nearly a year and a half. Much of his time in captivity was spent in isolation in a tiny, pitch-black terror tunnel beneath the Gaza Strip.
“Starvation, it’s an awful thing,” Shem-Tov said. “Seeing my bones, my shoulder bones, my rib cage, I can feel it. Eating a biscuit a day, calculating how to eat it throughout the day. Not a lot of people can imagine what true darkness is. If you’re in a dark room you move your hand, you see shadows moving. I did not see those shadows. There were times I thought I went blind.”
Early in the morning on October 7, as he danced with his friends in the desert, Hamas massacred hundreds at the Nova Music Festival, and abducted 44 people, including Shem-Tov.
His parents, Malki and Shelley, were among the founders of the Hostage and Families Forum, now a global advocacy group supported by New York-based UJA Federation. That’s where the family told their story Tuesday night.
All of this comes as yet another attempt at peace fell through. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu doubled down on Wednesday, vowing to maintain the Israeli onslaught until all of Gaza is under Israeli control. But Hamas holds 58 hostages and won’t return them unless the war ends.
“This is something that we cannot understand,” said Omer’s father Matt Malki Shem-Tov. “How come lives of people become political?”
Omer Shem-Tov was the last of 33 hostages released during the short-lived ceasefire earlier this year.
He’s hungry no more, and no longer in the dark, but what he can’t shake is the guilt that he’s free and others are not.
“It’s this feeling of guilt, this feeling of guilt it will not let you go,” he said. “All I want is for people to really unite and come together and to help us finish this hell and retrieve all the hostages back home.”
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