Former hostage Omer Shem Tov described the prolonged loneliness, intense hunger, and physical abuse he endured during 505 days in Hamas captivity, as well as his life after release, in a wide-ranging interview with Maariv last week.
Shem Tov was abducted from the Nova music festival on October 7, 2023, and held in Gaza for 505 days before being released in February 2025. His comments came following the launch of his first book, Meeting Myself in Hell, which was published last month and reveals details of his 16 months of captivity.
“For me, loneliness was the hardest thing,” Shem Tov said in the interview. He noted, though, that there were difficult aspects of his captivity, including abuse at the hands of the terrorists who held him, that he has not spoken about.
At first, Shem Tov recounted, he was held together with Itay Regev, who, along with his sister Maya, was released during the November 2023 hostage-prisoner exchanges.
“When they separated us, it was one of the hardest moments of captivity, because by then we had grown accustomed to sharing the hardship, hunger and fear together,” Shem Tov said. “I think the period alone after being separated from Itay was one of the hardest periods of captivity.”
Omer Shem Tov’s 50 days of cramped darkness in Gaza
The time following Regev’s release made up the bulk of Shem Tov’s captivity. During this time, he recounted, he spent 50 days isolated and in complete darkness in a cell so small that he could not stand upright.
“In the first few days, it suffocated me. I couldn’t breathe because of the anxiety,” he said. “Slowly, I got used to the darkness. I started imagining things, shapes. My imagination developed tremendously during that period.”
At one point, he said, a small flashlight fell from a terrorist’s pocket. Shem Tov hid it and would switch it on briefly each day “to check that my eye could still see.”
After his release, he said he realized that he sometimes missed “the absolute darkness,” because despite his suffering at the time, it was also when he felt “most connected to myself and to God.”
Hunger was another challenge.
“We were very hungry, because we got very little bread — half a pita, sometimes less. A little canned meat,” he recalled. “We talked about meat. We dreamed about meat.”
This was exacerbated at times, he added, when, while hungry, he could smell Gazans cooking food nearby.
“Sometimes they would grill behind the room where we were being held. We would smell the kebab and hear the voices of the women and children,” he said. “I would tell Itay to smell the smoke so the smell would remind us of the taste of meat.”
Shem Tov added that they would pretend that the bits of food they received were actually meat.
“We would bite into the pita, close our eyes, and imagine it was meat. A bite of pita — chicken thigh. A bite of pita — kebab. A bite of pita — shishlik.”
He also spoke briefly about some of the physical abuse he received, including one incident in which a terrorist beat him after telling him that his friend had been killed.
“I remember that one day, when I was in a tunnel, a terrorist came in and told me, ‘Today you killed my best friend,’” he said. “I immediately told him I was very sorry, but he picked up a broomstick and started hitting me extremely hard on the legs.”
Shem Tov was ultimately released alongside Eliya Cohen and Omer Wenkert in February 2025.
Before his transfer to the Red Cross, however, Hamas forced the three men to participate in a staged release ceremony. Shem Tov said that minutes beforehand, one of the terrorists instructed him to kiss the head of Sabai Abu Hasna, one of the terrorists who had taken part in holding him captive and who was standing beside him on stage.
Shem Tov initially refused, but said he feared angering his captors with freedom so close.
“Suddenly I told myself, fine, I’ll kiss him on the head, I’ll go home, he’ll stay there, and that’s it,” he recalled.
After reaching the Re’im base and reuniting with his parents, Shem Tov said one of the first things he told them was that he was ashamed of what he had done and feared Israelis would think he was a “traitor.”
He only understood later, after meeting members of the public, that people recognized he had been coerced.
Abu Hasna, a member of Hamas’s Nukhba unit, was later killed by the IDF and Shin Bet in June of this year in northern Gaza.
After getting a call from the Shin Bet informing him of Abu Hasna’s death, Shem Tov said he was glad, “because he was an evil person who caused me a great deal of suffering and did other terrible things,” but that, for him, it wasn’t life-changing.
“I think that from the moment I left him and was transferred by the Red Cross to the IDF, I left him and his evil behind,” Shem Tov said.
Still, he said, his freedom didn’t bring him immediate peace.
Shem Tov said captivity continues to intrude on his life, with certain things triggering intense emotional responses.
He said the sounds of fighter jets, fireworks, and loud explosions can trigger memories of Gaza. Sometimes, seeing someone who resembles one of the terrorists who held him can also throw him back into his experiences there.
At the same time, he has resisted allowing captivity to define his identity.
Since his release, Shem Tov has traveled, lectured, and studied. Recently, he completed an acting course in New York and published his book.
He said he initially rejected the idea of writing the book because he did not want his identity to be defined by having been a hostage, but ultimately decided his experience could offer others “tools and guidance, light and hope” in confronting their own crises.
At the same time, he said, he feels deep gratitude for the soldiers who fought for Israel.
“It bothers me when people tell me I’m a hero,” Shem Tov said. “I don’t think I’m a hero. This was a reality that was forced on me. The soldiers are heroes, the reservists, everyone who fought for me at home is a hero.”