Bring Them Home Now: Omer Shem Tov, age 21

Shelly Shemtov, mother of Omer, on day 103 of her son being held in captivity in Gaza. "He is our sunshine, and it is 103 days we are in a nightmare."

The last contact Shelly Shemtov had with her youngest son was the morning of October 7. Omer had gone the night before with several friends to the Nova music festival. Shelly and her husband spoke with Omer several times that morning, between the first bombs and 8:45am, when Omer told them he and his friends were trying to escape, they had gotten to the car.

Shelly tracked her son via his phone - he appeared to be getting out. But then, the tracking started to go the wrong direction, toward Gaza.

“I’m saying, no way, it’s a huge wall; maybe someone stole his phone,” she recalls.

There were no more calls, no word until that night, when a friend of Omer’s sent a video he’d seen online.

“We saw that Omer is on the floor of a pick-up truck, with his hands handcuffed,” Shelly says.

That was 103 days ago.

Omer’s friend was held with him in captivity with him for 52 days. After his release, he told Shelly he and Omer had been kept in a dark room, fed one meal a day to share, and told not to talk above a whisper.

“He said, they were giving strength to each other, that Omer was his big brother,” Shelly says. “He said to him, ‘Let’s think about what we will do when we come back home.’”

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