A freed Israeli hostage said that Hamas treated him better after President Donald Trump was elected and that they feared what he might do to them.
Omer Shem Tov, 22, spoke to CNN about his time in captivity following Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, terror attack on Israel during a May 2025 interview.
He told CNN’s Bianna Golodryga that his captors instantly changed their behavior once Trump took office.
“They wanted Kamala [Harris] to be chosen,” Shem Tov said of the terrorists’ preferred outcome in the 2024 election.
“Before we felt like nothing is happening, and I remember … ever since he came into the role, they were very scared of him,” he explained.
“As soon as Donald Trump was elected, they understood that he wants to bring the hostages back home.”
“(The terrorists) were very scared of (Trump). They wanted Kamala to be elected. But as soon as Trump was elected, they understood he wants to bring the hostages back home. So immediately the way they treated me changed…My food, they treated me better.”
Omer Shem Tov tells me… pic.twitter.com/phHusemiAc— Bianna Golodryga (@biannagolodryga) May 28, 2025
“So immediately the way they treated me changed,” he added. “When Trump became president the way they treated us changed — for me, personally.”
He said Hamas gunmen stopped cursing at and spitting on him and began providing more food.
That revelation says it all about how the enemies of Israel and America view strength.
Violent bullies only understand force.
They saw Trump as unpredictable, capable of anything — meaning he might negotiate with them, kill them all, or some variation of those two outcomes.
Under former President Joe Biden and Harris, they saw softness, moral confusion, weakness, and wokeness.
They exploited it.
Shame on the previous administration for being so timid that even Hamas believed it could starve and kill Jews under its watch.
Trump, in contrast, let Israel do what it needed to do, which was crush the militants, even as the left and many of its media allies smeared their efforts for security as “genocide.”
The president came into office and didn’t apologize for defending civilization against barbarism.
He didn’t try to shame Israel for defending its people.
Hamas is made up of barbaric savages, but they saw what happened to Iran’s nuclear facilities.
They feared Trump, and their anxiety saved lives.
For the first time in more than two years, no Jews are being held hostage today in Gaza because Trump was willing to play his cards the right way.
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