“I’m Omer Shem Tov, and I’m a free man.”
This sentence punctuated a talk by former Israeli hostage Omer Shem Tov at Welsh Valley Middle School in Penn Valley on March 18.
An audience of more than 400 rose to its feet twice to applaud and cheer Shem Tov, 23, as he recounted how Hamas terrorists took him and his friends, Maya and Itay Regev, captive as they attended the Nova music festival on Oct. 7, 2023.
“We had so much fun. To be 20 years old and go to a party,” said Shem Tov, who had completed his military service in 2023.
Sirens warned of a missile attack, but they remained calm, because “for us Israelis, every now and then, there is an attack.”
They waited a bit to leave, and his dad called him to say urgently that this was more than missiles, that terrorists had entered Israel.
Suddenly, “Maya, Itay, and myself were running for our lives in this huge, open field area,” he said. “Thousands running for their lives. As I run, I can see people dropping down to the floor, getting shot.”
They kept going, and a friend of a friend, Ori Danino, who had driven away, called him and asked where they were, saying he’d come back for them.
In Danino’s vehicle, they were driving and “as we turn right, suddenly I see two pickup trucks of Hamas blocking the road,” said Shem Tov.
Image by Linda SteinThe terrorists opened fire.
“Bullets were flying next to my head,” he said, making a noise to illustrate.
Maya was wounded and called her father, telling him she loved him and that she had been shot. He played a cell phone recording of that call.
He called Danino “my guardian angel.”
“If it wasn’t for him, I wouldn’t be standing here today telling my story,” he said. Danino fled, was later caught, and taken to Gaza. The terrorists killed him after 11 months.
The terrorists dragged Shem Tov out of the car by his hair and beat him with weapons. Both Maya and Itay had leg wounds, and Maya’s leg was hanging by a strand of skin, he said. She later had 10 surgeries because a Hamas “doctor” stitched her leg back on “the other way around.”
In Gaza, he was moved from apartment to apartment. From a car, he saw crowds of Gazans celebrating and shouting.
“I see men, and women, and children, and everyone was so, so happy,” said Shem Tov. “So happy to know that Jews were murdered, to know that women were raped, and kids were slaughtered. They were so, so happy. I was shocked.”
One night, the terrorists left them locked in an apartment in an abandoned building. Overnight, Israeli planes dropped bombs on the neighborhood, and the apartment window shattered. The building shook. Shem Tov thought it might collapse, but it didn’t. When their captors came back for them the next day, he saw all the buildings around the one the hostages were in were piles of rubble.
Hamas released Maya and Itay, but Shem Tov remained.
Eventually, he was taken into a dark tunnel, put in a tiny cell, and fed a piece of bread a day. That was reduced to a half piece, then a quarter of a piece, then finally a small biscuit a day, with salty water.
He prayed that he would survive.
A terrorist came to his cell and told him to get his things, that he’d be going home. The terrorist took him to a bigger tunnel with white tiles. He used a bottle of water to “shower.” And they gave him some food.
One of the terrorists called him a pig. The next day, a terrorist woke him up and told him he had to go back to the tunnel cell where he was.
Later, another terrorist told his comrade that he wanted to keep him there another night to “investigate him.”
That night, the Israeli air force bombed, and the path to the other tunnel collapsed, “and I couldn’t go back.” So, he stayed in the bigger tunnel.
“I am so thankful to the IDF (Israeli Defense Force),” he said. “They are the true heroes.”
He was starved, beaten, and mentally tortured, but continued to hope for freedom.
Through the tunnel’s ventilation, he heard IDF soldiers speaking. A terrorist went up and brought some books written in Hebrew back down. One of them was the “yellow book” by Chabad. He asked the tunnel terrorists’ leader if he could keep that book in exchange for cooking and cleaning for his captors. In the book was the story of Jonah and the whale.
“For me, it was a sign from God, I’m going to be just like Jonah.”
After 505 days, Shem Tov was released as part of the ceasefire hostage deal brokered by the Trump administration. Shortly after he was reunited with his parents and siblings, Shem Tov flew to Washington to urge the president to free the remaining hostages.
Image by Linda Stein“Thank God, all the hostages are back,” he said. “Stay strong so it will never happen again.”
Chabad of the Main Line Rabbi Shraga Sherman mentioned that the first night of Passover is April 1. He suggested people may want to discuss Shem Tov’s talk at their Passover Seders, where Jewish people “relive our personal Exodus from inner constraints and challenges.”
Shem Tov’s story gives “an example of the tools for that,” he said.
Rabbi Sherman and his wife, Michal, also gifted Shem Tov with a leather-bound copy of the Chabad booklet that helped sustain him during his hostage ordeal.
Shem Tov said this horrible experience brought him closer to God and Judaism.
“I asked God to give me strength and life,” he said.
