Freed hostage Omer Shem Tov says Hamas tried to force him to kill IDF soldiers

Shem Tov recounted how one of his captors said, “Omer, when soldiers come to this house,  you’re going to blow them up.”

By Vered Weiss, World Israel News

Released captive Omer Shem Tov recounted the horrors of the 505 days of his captivity: the loneliness, the mistreatment, his thoughts of escaping, and Hamas’s attempt to force him to kill IDF soldiers.

At that point in his captivity, Shem Tov was being kept in a place where he could hear IDF soldiers operating in the area above him. He recalls a sudden plan to take one of his captor’s rifles and escape while they were asleep, but was deterred by fear.

Shem Tov said one day his captors came in with a laptop and a garbage bag filled with money.

“There were bags of money—piles,” he said, estimating the total at about three million shekel.

Shem Tov recounted how one of his captors said, “Omer, when soldiers come to this house. You’re going to blow them up.”

He replied firmly, “No, it’s not going to happen. I’m not going to do it.”

The terrorists said, “If you won’t do it, we’ll shoot you in the head.”

Omer replied, “Then shoot me in the head.”

Shem Tov, who was kidnapped at the Nova Music Festival on October 7, recalled his first thoughts when he realized he had been captured.

“The first thing you think about is Gilad Shalit. You think about five years,” Shem Tov said.

Shalit was kidnapped by Hamas terrorists on June 25, 2006, in Israel in an unprovoked attack in which two soldiers were killed and five others wounded. He was released in exchange for 1,000 Palestinian Prisoners on October 18, 2011.

For the first 50 days of his captivity, Shem Tov was held together with Itay Regev, who was freed during the November 2023 truce and hostage-prisoner exchange.

Shem Tov described his loneliness after Regev’s release as,”That was one of our biggest fears. Suddenly, there was silence in the apartment. I just felt like I was going crazy.”

Shem Tov was then led into a tunnel where he was given only one or two pitas a day, salty water to drink, and was forced to remain in an area where he couldn’t stand up, most of the time in complete darkness.

Since his release, Shem Tov says he has constantly thought about the hostages who remain in Gaza: “You say to yourself, ‘Why am I here and they’re not? What about them?’ I don’t understand why I am and they are not. In what way am I ‘worth more’? We are the same. There shouldn’t be a list. It should be everyone, and that’s it.”