Omer Wenkert was 22 when Hamas abducted him from the Nova Music Festival on October 7 2023. Now 23, the young volunteer is expected to be released under a new ceasefire-hostage deal.
Omer suffers from an autoimmune disease and his family said on his website they fear his terrorist captors are not providing him the medication he needs. His condition, colitis, causes ulcers to appear in the digestive tract, according to the Mayo Clinic.
In the moments leading up to his capture, Omer texted his parents that he was “scared to death.” While many families were left unknowing for days whether their loved ones were abducted or murdered, his family were informed hours after his abduction after Hamas posted a video of the young Omer strapped to a pickup truck in his underwear. Images later circulated showing Omer lying on the ground in Gaza.
Kim Damti, a friend attending the festival with Omer, was murdered while hiding in a rocket shelter.
Liam Or, a hostage released in the November deal, told the family he was held with Omer, according to Haaretz.
"Liam said that Omer encouraged him, kept his optimism, and even managed to sing in captivity,” Omer’s mother said.
Liam has previously described being held with Wenkert and Thai workers in Gaza. He described how all of them were made to sleep on a nylon sheet in a locked room with a barrel to use for a toilet.
“There was no day and night. A white fluorescent light was on 100 percent of the time. It was always light, and sometimes there were power outages. It was pitch black,” he testified, adding they were given only a few dates and half a pita to eat a day.
Before October 7
The oldest of three children, Omer loved young people - eventually volunteering as an instructor for the Gedera branch of the group Young Maccabi.
Before being abducted, Omer was employed at the restaurant Nina Bianca, and he aspired to one day become a restaurant critic. He was enrolled to begin study at Shenkar College to study a restaurant management course - a dream paused by his captors.
The family was told that Russian President Vladamir Putin was making efforts to secure Omer’s safety, according to Israeli media reports. Omer’s grandmother, Tsili Wenkert, was saved by the Red Army as she was being transferred to the Auschwitz concentration camp.
At 83, Tsili has joined efforts to release the hostages - even sharing Omer’s favorite family recipes to raise awareness of his plight, according to The Forward.