Freed Israeli hostage Omer Wenkert recounted the horrific abuse he endured while imprisoned in Hamas’s underground tunnels, describing a brutal deterioration in his treatment that coincided with Israel’s military operation in Rafah during May 2024.
“They deliberately deprived me of food,” Wenkert said while speaking at the Bar Association conference, recalling a period of two to three weeks during which he survived on just half a pita a day.
He described the conditions as especially cruel around the time the IDF advanced toward Rafah. “There was purposeful starvation, and calculated torment,” he said. “They put me in situations that seriously threatened my life — and did it just for amusement.”
Wenkert shared one disturbing incident in which a captor brought insect spray, stood him at the end of a narrow hallway, and sprayed directly into his open eyes. “He made sure to spray everything I might touch as well,” Wenkert said. “And then he started hitting me with an iron rod.”
He explained that during the first six and a half months of his ordeal, he was kept in solitary confinement, with minimal interaction from his captors. “They would approach me only occasionally,” he said.
Around his 80th day in captivity, Wenkert was transferred to a different tunnel corridor. He described this new area as “a pitch-black room with a dim light.” According to him, his captors attempted to destroy his sense of time and sanity. “They tried to unhinge me mentally,” he said. “Even when giving me food, they insisted I turn away while they placed it down. I was allowed to wash once every 50 days, and only with a small bottle of water. I didn’t have a proper bath until nine and a half months had passed.”
The tunnel where he spent most of his captivity was a narrow space measuring just 90 centimeters (about 35 inches) in width and 9 to 10 meters (roughly 29 to 32 feet) in length. He said there was a small hole designated as a toilet.
“I lay on a thin mattress, my back pressed to the wall,” he recalled. “I was trapped there for what I estimate was 420 days.”
On June 13, 2024, two other hostages, Evyatar David and Guy Gilboa-Dalal, were placed in the same tunnel section with him. Both men are still in Hamas captivity, more than 590 days after they were kidnapped on October 7, 2023.
“The arrival of others brought some mental relief,” Wenkert said. “But it got tighter. We had to share food and water, and the physical conditions became even more difficult. On the other hand, the physical abuse came to a stop.”
Now 23 years old, Wenkert had been among at least 40 individuals abducted by Hamas terrorists during the October 7 attack on the Supernova music festival in the Negev, where around 360 people were slaughtered.
His release came on February 22, 2025, after 505 days in captivity. He was freed as part of a temporary truce agreement between Israel and Hamas that later unraveled after its first stage.
At present, terror organizations in Gaza continue to hold 58 hostages. This includes 57 people taken on October 7 by Hamas-led attackers. Of these, the Israel Defense Forces have verified that at least 35 are deceased. Twenty hostages are believed to still be alive, while Israeli authorities have voiced serious concerns over the health and status of three others.
Between January and March 2025, Hamas released 30 captives — 20 Israeli civilians, five IDF soldiers, and five Thai nationals — in addition to the bodies of eight Israeli hostages who had been murdered. In May, the terror group handed over one more hostage, an Israeli-American citizen, calling it a “gesture” toward the United States.
Previously, during a one-week truce in late November 2023, Hamas freed 105 civilians, and four hostages were released in the initial weeks following the October 7 massacre. In total, Israel has released approximately 2,000 Palestinian prisoners, including convicted terrorists and others detained during the ongoing conflict.
Israeli forces have managed to rescue eight hostages alive through military operations. In addition, the bodies of 41 hostages have been recovered. This includes three mistakenly shot by Israeli troops during an escape attempt, as well as the remains of a soldier killed in 2014. Hamas continues to hold the body of another IDF soldier killed that same year, and he is included in the current list of 58 hostages still in Gaza.
{Matzav.com Israel}