In a tiny room that could barely contain a mattress, freed hostage Omer Wenkert said he would try to pace away the hunger and dread during his days in captivity, speaking alongside his mother, Niva, at the Israel Bar Association annual conference in Eilat.
“I had a mirror only three times in captivity where I could actually see my face. The third time, I only saw my face and saw that I was really skinny. I kept telling Guy [Gilboa Dalal] and Eviatar [David], ‘I’m not that skinny.’ They said that my bones were visible,” he said. Gilboa-Dalal and David are still being held captive by Hamas in the Gaza Strip, along with 56 others, dead and alive. Thursday will mark 600 days since October 7, and 600 days in captivity for the surviving hostages.
When the IDF began operating in Rafah in May 2024, Wenkert said his condition severely worsened.
“We were intentionally starved. The captors put my life in danger for fun. One of them brought in a bottle of pest spray, made me stand in the corner of the hallway, and sprayed it across my face while forcing my eyes open. He made sure that everything I touched would be covered in the spray,” he said.
Wenkert said that when he got to the Re’im base after his release and saw his reflection, he was shocked.
Captors told Wenkert 'there is no time underground'
He added that there were weeks when he received no food, “not even a pita.” During the other weeks, when he did receive a pita, sometimes it contained some cheese or fava beans. Generally, though, “There were no vitamins, no minerals. Only simple carbs to eat, like pita and rice,” he said.
“I can count on two fingers the times I ate anything that wasn’t empty carbs,” he added.
When it came to water, he said it depended on diplomatic progress and the availability of water on the ground.
“We were underground the whole time, and the temperature only increased there. There is no air, it is hard to breathe. You don’t really feel winter or summer,” he said.
Niva said that the most concerning part of the ordeal for her was seeing how pale Omer had become.
“On the day that Or Levy, [Eli Sharabi] and Ohad Ben Ami were released [on February 7], it was so reminiscent of Holocaust survivors,” she said.
The three emerged looking emaciated, eliciting shock and horror from across the globe.
US President Donald Trump said at the time that they “looked like Holocaust survivors – they were in horrible condition... they look like they haven’t had a meal in a month.”
Niva said that when she saw Omer in the hospital after his release, “It was hard to see him so skinny, but the paleness was the hardest – we saw everything there: The humiliation and the abuse, the eyes that tell everything, and the body bore witness to the abuse.”
Omer added that as soon as he had a full-body mirror, he took off his shirt to take stock “of how skinny I was. When I got home, I couldn’t bring myself to choose a shirt, because I knew how skinny I looked and I didn’t want my parents to worry even more.”
He said that in captivity, he had a tiny room that could barely contain a mattress. “I was in that hallway for months. The captors would come in maybe once a day. To mess with my sense of time, they would say ‘There is no time underground.’”
He added, “I would shower from a water bottle once about every 50 days. In 300 days, I changed clothes maybe four times.
“When the aid was blocked, they would abuse me with whatever they had, just for fun, including spraying bug spray at me and at everything in the room. I was starved,” he said.
When hostages David and Gilboa-Dalal joined Omer underground, “it made it easier emotionally, but there was also much less room, and there was nowhere to walk.”
He said, “As soon as I could, I walked as much as I could. That’s how I would pass the time, back and forth.”