Heart-stopping: Omer Wenkert Reveals What He Saw on October 7

Omer Wenkert, who was released as part of the deal with Hamas, told (Tuesday) for the first time about his long days in captivity, the moments of his kidnapping which happened on his own initiative, and how he refused to be humiliated in front of the terrorists. He gave the full interview to Channel 12.

"At six-thirty, when the Red Alert sirens and all the missile fire started, we entered the shelter at Re'im, and then we realized there was a terrorist infiltration," says Neutra. He recalls the many explosions that occurred in the shelter, the fear of being burned alive, and his decision to go outside: "I started yelling at people, 'Let me out, let me out, I prefer to be shot, I prefer to be shot.'"

He says that arriving in Gaza was difficult, with hundreds of people, civilians and children around him filming him. When he was taken down to a tunnel in Gaza, he was sure he was the only hostage there, until he began to hear people speaking Hebrew.

"Suddenly two people pass through the tunnel and simply finish you off with beatings using whatever they can, whether it's hitting you with the barrel [of a gun] on your legs, blows to the face, and kicks everywhere ... with each punch you lose consciousness, and the next one wakes you up. With the third you lose consciousness, and the fourth wakes you up, with the fifth you lose consciousness, and the sixth wakes you up," Omer recounts.

"Sleeping on sand, Liam and I covered ourselves with plastic until around day 50. Occasionally the light would go out underground. When the light goes out underground, it's total darkness, very frightening. You eat very little at first. Most of the time you eat very little. In the morning, three dates, in the evening, half a pita.

"You have half a liter of water for two people for the entire day, for 24 hours. Slowly it increased a bit because the Thais chose to speak up, saying 'we want more food,' and I was in survival mode of captivity. I said this is the situation, this is my food, and this is what I'm dealing with. I wasn't willing to lower myself. I wasn't willing to tell them it's not enough; I didn't want to show them weakness."

Omer painfully describes the severe moments of humiliation he experienced: "They beat me during that period. They spat on me. I was very weak physically, so they messed with me a bit. Humiliations. 'Now do 150-200 push-ups,' after that they tell you to do 100 squats, and meanwhile, someone throws a block of cheese at your face, and then spits on you, and things like that.

Sometimes they would come with pest spray. They would come with such spray and simply tell you to go to the end of the room, spray it in your face, on your body, on your utensils, on your toothbrush."

Finally, Wenkert described the day of his release: "We start to get ready but I didn't sleep a minute. They start leading us outside. After they opened the last blast door, which is what's called when you're on the way to the shaft that takes you out and you start to hear the outside, they stop us for a moment. We stood there, holding hands with covered eyes. I think either Omer or Elia started to sing Shir LaMa'alot [A Song of Ascents]. And we found ourselves, the three of us, singing Shir LaMa'alot, in a high volume, from the heart, genuine."