Omer Shem Tov, 20, who was kidnapped from the Nova Music Festival on October 7, 2023, and taken by Hamas terrorists to the Gaza Strip, told Fox News Digital in an interview that his captors’ behavior towards him changed once Donald Trump won the presidential election.
Trump shared a link to the interview with Shem Tov to his Truth Social platform on Sunday.
“As soon as Trump was elected, I saw the fear in their eyes,” said Shem Tov, who survived 505 days in Hamas captivity before being released in the hostage release deal in February of 2025. “They knew that everything on ground is gonna change, that something else is gonna happen, and they were scared. They were very scared.”
For the last five months of his captivity, Shem Tov was forced to dig, clean, move bombs, and carry food in Hamas’ tunnels. “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 of the US presidential election from his captors, who watched Al Jazeera 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. He overheard them discussing “how they want Kamala to win.”
After Trump’s victory on November 5, 2024, Hamas’ treatment of him shifted. “So everything changed,” Shem Tov said. “The amount of food that I got changed. The way they treated me changed. I could see just them preparing for something bigger.” Despite Hamas’ stockpiles, he mostly survived on small biscuits.
He recalled his 21st birthday in captivity, weeks after being kidnapped. “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.
After his release, Shem Tov traveled to Washington to meet Trump in the Oval Office. “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,” he told Fox News Digital. “And he made that promise. He made that promise, he said that he will bring back all the hostages.”
Shem Tov continues to stay close with fellow survivors. “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,” he said.