WASHINGTON — A former Oct. 7 hostage who survived greater than 16 months of Hamas captivity within the Gaza Strip will warn attendees of Turning Level USA’s America Fest convention Friday that “radical terrorist violence” has unfold throughout the globe since that tragic day, The Put up can reveal.
“This combat is greater than Israel. It’s a combat for Western civilization itself,” Omer Shem Tov, who spent 505 days in captivity earlier than his launch this previous Feb. 22, is predicted to say, in keeping with a replica of his ready remarks.
The deal with will notice that the identical evil he encountered in Gaza’s tunnels is “spreading in Africa, in Europe, and sure, even right here in America.”
“What I skilled was not only a private tragedy. It’s a part of a a lot bigger combat,” Shem Tov plans to say. “We’ve seen these similar radical terrorists commit violence in Israel, in Europe, in Australia, and even right here in america, together with the current [Nov. 26] assault in Washington, DC, the place two Nationwide Guardsmen have been shot.“
“That is the evil we’re preventing,” the ready remarks add. “And that’s the reason Turning Level USA issues. Since you see the reality. And also you stand for freedom.”
“Charlie Kirk as soon as mentioned, ‘Israel is a civilized nation. Hamas are savage animals,’” Shem Tov additionally plans to say. “Take it from somebody who spent 505 days as their hostage. Charlie was proper.”
The 2025 convention will host a number of the most influential political figures and pundits on the precise, together with Vice President JD Vance, podcasters Megyn Kelly and Tucker Carlson, and present and former federal officers, lawmakers, entertainers and pastors.
It comes as some right-wing pundits and Republican lawmakers have criticized Israel and its conduct within the battle towards Hamas, driving a wedge between the US and its lone ally within the Center East.
That friction got here to the fore when President Trump determined to bomb Iranian nuclear websites on June 21, with Carlson claiming months earlier than that the transfer “will nearly definitely end in hundreds of American deaths at bases all through the Center East, and price america tens of billions of {dollars}.”
Neither occurred — and Trump informed off his detractors within the wake of the largely profitable bombings.
Shem Tov was one in all many revelers kidnapped from the Nova music pageant and pushed into Gaza, the place he was pressured underground and into darkness with little water and one small meal a day — at the same time as his tormenters pressured him to hold UN-stamped meals packages by means of their terror tunnels.
In an interview with The Put up Wednesday, Shem Tov emphasised that the Israeli-Hamas battle has been mischaracterized as a battle “in regards to the land” when actually it’s “about faith” — and praised Trump for understanding that “this isn’t simply an Israel and Gaza factor.”
Radicals within the media, international governments and on social networking platforms are additionally emboldening Islamic terrorists worldwide, he claimed.
“They’re attempting to kill — and initially, it’s the Jews, and after that it’s each different faith,” Shem Tov mentioned. “So if it’s Christians and if it’s Buddhism and if it’s no matter it’s, however folks have to grasp that this isn’t simply an Israel and Palestinian factor. It’s a terror group who comes after different religions.”
“That’s the issue,” he added. “Individuals are not getting the purpose: It’s evil versus good.”
Shem Tov spent 54 days in captivity with a good friend who had gone with him to the pageant. That good friend was then launched, whereas Omer was pressured right into a small cell in a tunnel 120 toes under floor, unable to even arise.
Later, Shem Tov’s captors moved him to an even bigger tunnel, although no pure gentle was capable of enter.
“It was a chunk of bread a day, and slowly it bought much less and fewer and fewer,” he famous. “It bought to some extent the place I had a biscuit a day, and even typically I had this small — two ounces — cup of dry spices a day … and I used to drink some salty water, ocean water.”
“The therapy stayed the identical,” he added. “They used to spit on me. They used to curse me. They used to abuse me bodily and psychologically. … I used to be a slave.”
Shem Tov mentioned the one approach he survived practically two years as a hostage was studying to speak every day with God and by studying a small Torah that his captors allowed him in trade for working their bombs and meals by means of the tunnels.
He additionally mentioned he taught himself to talk Arabic in simply 5 months — with out ever letting his captors know he may perceive their conversations.
“The factor that saved me, it was by approaching God,” he defined. “I may hear tanks mendacity above my head and I may hear even typically troopers talking by means of the air flow in Hebrew.
“And whereas I hear them talking, the terrorists, they maintain a gun to my head they usually inform me, ‘As quickly as they arrive in, We’re going to shoot you within the head, they usually’re going to run off,’ and also you simply, it’s a must to be silent.”
After a month or so, the Israeli navy withdrew from the realm the place Shem Tov was being saved. When Hamas searched above floor, they discovered books written in Hebrew, together with excerpts from the Torah.
One of many entries, Shem Tov recalled, recounted the Biblical story of Joseph from the guide of Genesis. The story recounts how one of many Jewish prophets is bought into slavery in Egypt, solely to change into a key adviser to the pharaoh.
“It’s like a straight signal from God that I’m going to be similar to Joseph,” he mentioned. “I’m going to return out of the pit.”
Shem Tov has since toured faculty campuses and launched into different talking engagements, the place he’s discovered even anti-Israel protesters shocked to listen to his story.
“I used to be at Berkeley,” he shared. “I had this occasion and there have been 500 folks there, however I got here there and most of them, they have been Jews. And I informed myself, ‘What am I doing right here? I got here right here to the college the place I noticed these horrible movies of individuals protesting, screaming [about] genocide in Gaza and hunger’ … I’ve to do one thing about it.”
“So the subsequent day within the morning, I took a desk. I put this Israeli flag on it and I put up the signal: ‘I used to be a hostage held by Hamas for 505 days. Ask me something,’” he recounted. “Professional-Palestinians got here as much as me and began speaking to me.”
Shem Tov’s actions echoed these of TPUSA co-founder Charlie Kirk, who was assassinated throughout a talking engagement on the campus of Utah Valley College Sept. 10.
“I wouldn’t let you know that I modified their thoughts,” he famous. “The professional-Palestinian … would say one thing and I’d give him a reality. And I may see the group round … how they modified immediately. They’d say, ‘Oh, I didn’t know this.”
“Folks got here as much as me, Muslims, by the way in which, they got here as much as me they usually informed me, ‘Omer, I’m sorry … I didn’t know that. Please forgive us,’” he went on. “I feel lots of people proper now are simply — they’re ignorant. They don’t know; they’re uneducated.”
“I believed that that when Israel was attacked, that the entire world would have our again,” he mentioned of the encounter with college students, a lot of whom protested Israel’s prosecution of the battle towards Hamas.
“On the seventh of October,youngsters have been slaughtered, girls have been raped, homes have been burned down, folks have been burnt inside their autos.”
