Released hostage Tal Shoham spoke for the first time since his release, describing to Fox News Digital his 505 days in captivity.
Shoham was kidnapped from Kibbutz Be'eri during the October 7 massacre, and held in an 18 square foot space with three other hostages. He spent 8.5 months of his time in captivity in a Hamas tunnel, and five more months in five different houses in Gaza. He was starved, shackled, and returned to Israel severely malnourished.
Shoham stressed to Fox News that despite the torture he suffered, he was determined not to lose his humanity.
"I am not a victim," he told himself. "Even if this ends, I will end it with my head high, looking death in the eyes. They won’t break me, and I will not surrender to self-pity. We are stronger than the other side."
The two men he was held with, Evyatar David and Guy Gilboa-Dalal, are still held by Hamas in Gaza.
"Just as someone emerges from a womb alive, I emerged from the tunnel I was held in and was born again," he said, adding that he "can’t sleep at night knowing they are still there."
On the morning of October 7, as terrorists surrounded the home of his wife's parents, where Tal and his family were staying, Tal exited the home.
"I went out and raised my hands," he said. "A man with murder in his eyes led me onto the road and to a vehicle. I saw about 40 heavily armed terrorists. Some of them were filming me on their phones. I was in shock — there was an entire battalion of Hamas terrorists inside our kibbutz, bodies of people I knew who were murdered on the ground, and they are laughing, unafraid."
He was tossed into the trunk of a car and driven into Gaza, where a crowd was waiting.
"Teenagers with sticks ran toward me, trying to beat me from all sides," he told Fox. His captors removed him from the vehicle and pointed a rifle at Shoham, trying to force him to kneel. He said, "I can’t control whether you kill me or not," and raised his hands, but would not kneel. "If you want to kill me, kill me, but you will not execute me like ISIS," he told them. Following this, he was paraded through the streets, as a mob, which included young boys, tried to hit him with wooden clubs. Shoham waved and smiled, refusing to show fear.
The first home where he was held, for 34 days, allowed him to shower sporadically, gave him pita for the first three days. After that, he received just small amounts of fruits or vegetables to stay alive.
Shoham described the worst part of his suffering as the "isolation, being alone with relentless thoughts" and not knowing his family's fate. To survive this, he mourned his family as dead, imagining their funerals.
Evyatar and Guy joined Shoham on his 34th day in captivity; the three were allowed only 300 calories a day, were beaten daily, and were forbidden to speak.
Upon the release of his wife, Adi Shoham, from captivity, Tal received a letter from her telling him that she and their children had been held hostage but were being released.
"I read it, my hands shaking," he said. "The most important thing had happened — my family was safe. I didn’t need to be a father and husband protecting them anymore. Now, I could focus on my war, the one I knew how to fight, the one for survival."
In June 2024, the three hostages were moved to a tunnel, where Omer Wenkert was also being held. The four hostages were given just over 10 ounces of water a day, and only rice to eat. Hamas continued digging its tunnels.
Both Tal and Evyatar developed infections, but it took months for a doctor to be brought. In the meantime, the hostages were given blood thinners to prevent blood clots from lack of movement, and eventually vitamin supplements. When a new guard arrived, he made the hostages "kneel like dogs" and beat them, screaming that they were "filthy Jews."
Shoham stressed to Fox that among the Jewish hostages "there was purity, there was dignity. The terrorists brought in whatever horrors they wanted, inflicted whatever cruelty and pain they could, imposed their inhumanity on us. But within our space, we preserved our inner cleanliness, our humanity between one another. And that was crucial to making it out unbroken."