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Omer Shem Tov was dancing with friends at the Nova Music Festival in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas terrorists launched a devastating attack, killing hundreds and loading Shem Tov and dozens of others onto the backs of pickup trucks bound for Gaza.
The 20-year-old Israeli spent the next 505 days in Hamas captivity, serving as a slave in the terrorist group’s elaborate tunnels until “fear” filled their eyes on Nov. 5, 2024 — when President Donald Trump won the presidential election, he told Fox News Digital.
Shem Tov recounted his months living in Hamas’ captivity in Gaza as war raged between the terrorist group and Israel, during a recent Zoom interview with Fox News Digital. He was released from captivity in February and traveled to the U.S. shortly afterward to meet with Trump in the Oval Office.
“As soon as Trump was elected, I saw the fear in their eyes,” Shem Tov said. “They knew that everything on ground is gonna change, that something else is gonna happen, and they were scared. They were very scared.”
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Omer Shem Tov spoke with Fox News Digital, recounting his 505 days in Hamas captivity before his February release. (Amir Levy/Getty Images)
Shem Tov said that for roughly the last five months of his captivity, he lived in Hamas’ tunnel system beneath the Gaza Strip, where he was worked mercilessly.
“I was digging for them, and I was cleaning for them, and I was moving around bombs from place to places, and (carrying) food. I can tell you, just so you know, crazy amounts of food. Amounts of food that I’ve never seen before,” he recounted.
Shem Tov learned about the American presidential election from his Hamas captors, who watched Al Jazeera on a TV kept in the tunnels.
“The last five months, the terrorists, they brought TV to the tunnel and most of the time they watched Al Jazeera. That’s the only thing they watch. And… they wouldn’t let me watch TV, yeah, but sometimes I would overhear the TV,” he said.
Hamas militants parade newly-released Israeli hostage Omer Shem Tov on stage in Nuseirat in the central Gaza Strip, as part of the seventh hostage-prisoner release on Feb. 22, 2025. (Eyad Baba/Getty Images )
He said he overheard the terrorists discussing the election and “how they want Kamala to win.”
Once the election was decided, Shem Tov said, the terrorists changed the way they treated him, even offering him more food. He said he mostly survived on small biscuits throughout his captivity, despite Hamas controlling large amounts of food.
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President-elect Donald Trump gestures during an election night event in West Palm Beach, Florida. (Eva Marie Uzcategui/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
“So everything changed,” he said of how Hamas reacted to Trump’s win. “The amount of food that I got changed. The way they treated me changed. I could see just them preparing for something bigger.”
Shem Tov recounted that he spent his 21st birthday in captivity, just weeks after he was first kidnapped. He said that between Oct. 7 and Oct. 30 of 2023, he did “not cry once,” but that he felt a swell of emotion when remembering his family on his birthday.
The sister of Omer Shem Tov reacts at a family watch event as he appears on stage in Gaza before his release on Feb. 22, 2025 in Tel Aviv, Israel. (Amir Levy/Getty Images)
“At my birthday, it was the 31st of October, it was the first time that I broke down, I cried. It’s for me, thinking of my family, that’s something that really hits me. Understanding that my family, they’re back home, they’re safe, yeah, but they have to worry about me.… They don’t know if if I’m alive, if I’m starving… they had no idea. And I can tell you that while I was there, I suffered. I truly suffered. I was abused, I was starved in the most extreme way,” he said.
Since his release, Shem Tov has praised Trump for his role in freeing the hostages and pursuing peace in the Middle East. He told Fox News Digital that he had long heard Trump’s name and knew he was a “big supporter of Israel,” but had largely stayed out of politics before his kidnapping.
There is currently a cease-fire between Israel and Gaza after Trump rolled out a 20-point plan to secure peace in the region in September. The plan included the release of all the hostages. All hostages have been released from Hamas captivity except one, slain police officer Ran Gvili, whose body remains in Gaza.
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Shem Tov was among a handful of hostages who traveled to the White House to meet with Trump earlier in 2025, where he relayed that he and other hostages are “so grateful to him.”
President Trump meets with Hamas hostage survivors in the Oval Office on March 5, 2025. (POTUS/X)
“I personally told him that me and my family, and I would say all of Israel, believe that he was sent by God to release those hostages and to help Israel,” Shem Tov recounted of what he told Trump during his meeting in February. “And he made that promise. He made that promise, he said that he will bring back all the hostages.”
For Shem Tov, freedom after captivity has meant keeping close ties with fellow hostage survivors.
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“I would say they become like my family, like my brothers and sisters. We have many group chats and we see each other every once in a while and there are some who really become like brothers of mine,” Shem Tov said.
