At legal forum, hostage Omer Wenkert recounts 420 days of Hamas captivity marked by isolation, starvation, and abuse: ‘They came to me once in never.’
Survivor of Hamas captivity, Omer Wenkert, and his mother, Niva, participated on Sunday in the Israel Bar Association Conference, where Omer recounted the difficult time in captivity.
“I was alone for six and a half months. They came to me once in never. They would come in for a total of sixty seconds every day. The corridor I was in was 90cm (3ft) wide and about 9-10 meters (30-33ft) long. There was a hole behind me for me to relieve myself. I was on a small mattress, with my back up against the wall. I was there for 420 days, I think,” Omer stated.
He added, “On about the 80th day, I moved to the corridor, which was a very dark room with a small lamp in the middle. At a certain point, to drive me crazy, they worked to cause me to lose my sense of time, since underground, there is no time. When they would bring me food, they would order me to turn around until they left. I would get a shower once every 50 days. They would bring me a small bottle. Only after nine months did I really shower in captivity.”
Wenkert described some especially sinister abuse. “At around the [IDF’s] entry to Rafah, there was deliberate starvation. They would endanger my life for the fun of it. One of them brought bug spray, stood me at the end of the corridor, and sprayed me with it in the face, with my eyes open. He made sure that anything I touched would be sprayed. He decided to hit me with an iron rod. There was really extreme starvation.
“To my luck, on the 50th day, Evyatar (David) and Guy (Gilboa-Dalal) came. My mental state began to stabilize. But then, it was more stuffed, we slept together in the crowded corridor, the food and water were divided by four, and the physical conditions were much worse. But the abuse stopped,” he concluded.
