‘I am Omer’: Former Hamas hostage reflects on surviving 505 harrowing days in captivity

On Oct. 6, 2023, Omer Shem Tov and his family were celebrating his mother’s birthday. Less than 24 hours later, Hamas terrorists kidnapped Shem Tov from the Nova Music Festival and held him hostage in Gaza for 505 days. Nearly three years later, Shem Tov is telling his story while trying to regain his sense of self.

In a conversation with Fox News Digital, Shem Tov recalled that when Hamas’ attack started at 6:29 a.m. on Oct. 7, 2023, people at the festival took precautions, but were not panicked. He explained that “in Israel, we’re very used to it.” Thinking that the aerial attack was the only thing coming, festival goers, including Shem Tov and his friends, began packing up and heading to their cars to drive home. However, many of them never made it home and, as in Shem Tov’s case, some came back much later.

In his book, “Light From the Darkness,” Shem Tov recounts his experience of the attacks and throughout his time as a hostage in Gaza. He also opened up about having taken ecstasy shortly before the attacks began.

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“In my book, I talk about it, first of all, very openly, because I mean I want people to understand that I’m just like any other 20-year-old,” Shem Tov told Fox News Digital. “I wanted to party. I wanted to have fun.”

Shem Tov explained to Fox News Digital that he felt that the ecstasy, combined with his adrenaline, actually helped him “run faster and without stopping” as the attack began. He said that the feeling disappeared suddenly as terrorists got closer and began firing at him and his friends. Hours after being taken into Gaza, Shem Tov felt the effects again. He said it was “a very scary feeling.”

The first 50 days of his captivity were spent in total darkness, in a cage so small he could not stand up or spread out his arms. Shem Tov, who is an asthmatic, said he had trouble breathing in the tiny space and that he was “starved in the most extreme way.”

“I was in complete darkness, I couldn’t see anything, and I just went crazy,” Shem Tov told Fox News Digital, adding that in his mind, he was blaming God and “everyone else” for what had happened. “After a week, I got to a point where I realized that God has created me with the power of free will. I can choose to do whatever I want. I can choose to believe, I can choose not to believe. I can choose between good and bad and evil.”

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“I realized that I have two choices: Either I sink into depression and I blame everyone and God for everything that happened to me and I just sink deeper and deeper until eventually I think that I would have just died of depression and broken heart, or either I look at the situation, and I try to make something good in some way out of it,” he said.

While in complete darkness, Shem Tov said he was “crying to God” and telling Him, “God, from now on I trust you and I know that I’m in the right place, in the right time. This is exactly where I am supposed to be, and I’m in your hands from now on. Do as you wish, do as you will.”

“From that moment on, I just saw light. I really did see light in complete darkness,” he added.

While in captivity, Shem Tov faced extreme pressure from his captors, yet he refused to break even under the threat of death. When they ordered him to detonate traps against advancing Israel Defense Forces soldiers, he flatly refused. Even when his captors threatened to shoot him on the spot, Shem Tov held his ground and dared them to pull the trigger.

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“There was some kind of red line that I cannot cross. I will just, I will not do it,” Shem Tov told Fox News Digital. “If I wasn’t in captivity, maybe I would be up there. Maybe I would fight for my brothers and my sisters that were hostages. So, that was my red line and I just couldn’t do it, and I preferred to die than do it.”

On Feb. 22, 2025, after enduring 505 days as a hostage, Shem Tov returned to Israel in a prisoners-for-hostages exchange between Israel and Hamas and was reunited with his family. He spent months advocating for the hostages still left in the Gaza Strip. The last of the living hostages were released on Oct. 13, 2025.

Shem Tov still travels to tell his story and speaks out against what he sees as a dangerous narrative gap in how the war is portrayed abroad. Recently, he wrote an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal criticizing a controversial documentary called “NAZA,” the Hebrew military acronym for “collateral damage.” The film depicts casualties in Gaza and received a 25-minute standing ovation at the 83rd Venice International Film Festival. Shem Tov did not mince words when criticizing the film.

“It felt like 25 minutes of a rain of knives that just stabbed me,” he told Fox News Digital. “The war in Gaza was horrible, horrible for both sides, but in the movie ‘NAZA’ they only showed one side. They didn’t show my side. What about me? I was NAZA. I was collateral damage.”

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When reached for comment, representatives for the team behind “NAZA” referred Fox News Digital to previous statements made by directors Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor.

During a Q&A following the North American premiere of NAZA, which took place at the 64th New York Film Festival, Abraham addressed the criticisms of the film, calling the Oct. 7 attacks “unjustified,” while arguing that the barbarism of that day could not be used to defend Israel’s actions.

“I think it’s important for me to say that, you know, it’s in the film, and it’s — completely unjustified, the massacre of October the 7th, but it also cannot justify what you’ve seen in the film, doesn’t justify the slaughter of so many civilians in Gaza, the the the massacres at food sites,” Abraham said.

“When I was looking at those trucks, I thought, like, I don’t want to live in a world where empathy, rightful empathy to Israeli victims is weaponized by leaders like Netan — you know, cynical people who promise nothing other than perpetual occupation and war, is weaponized to mean a lack of empathy to Palestinians,” he continued.

Abraham was referring to protest trucks outside the screening that showed images of Oct. 7.

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Shem Tov, however, maintains that the film’s framing erases the reality of what happened during the Oct. 7 attacks and what brought the war to Gaza in the first place. He told Fox News Digital that he witnessed Hamas deliberately weaponizing the suffering of both the hostages and Palestinians as means of propaganda.

“They don’t really care about who dies,” Shem Tov said of Hamas. “For them, the more dead, the better.”

“Seeing a standing [ovation] of 25 minutes was just, well, I can’t explain how hurtful it was, how hurtful it was. Not seeing me, not seeing the true reason of what’s happening there. And I mean, I think people just should know more, should learn more, should see more,” he added.

Since his release from captivity, Shem Tov has witnessed this ideological divide firsthand while speaking at college campuses. He said that his visit to Columbia University was particularly triggering, as he had seen the encampments and people clad in keffiyehs on TV while he was being held hostage.

“It’s sad that people are following trends in some ways,” he told Fox News Digital. “Most of the students get their information from social media, and on social media, you can see a lot of lies, a lot of propaganda, and I think they should open a book. They should read more. They should learn more.”

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Three years after he was taken from the Nova festival, Shem Tov continues to tell his story while also looking towards the future. He told Fox News Digital that, while he has embraced what he sees as a duty to tell his story for all those who cannot tell their own, he will not let the 505 days he spent as a hostage define his life.

“I don’t run away for a second from what I’ve been through because I think what I’ve been through taught me a lot,” he said. “I have my duty and I know what’s my duty, and I will do anything to complete my job, but I’m much more than this, I am Omer.”