505 Days in the Hell of Hamas: A Meeting with Tal Shoham
“The Austrian Israeli dual citizen Tal Shoham spent 505 days in the hands of Hamas. Six weeks after his release from hostage-taking, on 3 April 2025, Tal, his wife and two children were welcomed at an emotional reception at the Jewish Community Centre in Vienna. He gave a moving account of his 505-day captivity in the tunnels of Gaza, spoke of the agonising uncertainty about the fate of his family during this time and emphasised his commitment to freeing his two ‘brothers’, Guy Gilboa-Dalal and Eviatar David, whom he had to leave behind.
Tal comments that on 6 October 2023, “It was a peaceful day,” The day before, he had travelled with his wife Adi and their two children Naveh (8) and Yula (4) to his in-laws, who lived in kibbutz Be’eri, to celebrate Sukkot (the Feast of Tabernacles) together. After a festive meal in the kibbutz dining room, they sat together in the sukkah (leaf hut) of his wife’s parents, drank wine and enjoyed “precious moments with the family”. “Nothing prepared us for the hell that would open up just hours after we had sat peacefully in the sukkah and laughed.”
Next morning, Saturday, 7 October 2023, there was one rocket alarm after the other. The family was then informed via WhatsApp that terrorists had infiltrated the kibbutz. They locked themselves in the shelter: three women, three children, two men. When the terrorists set about blowing up the door of the shelter, his son Naveh, eight years old at the time, hid behind him and asked him questions:
“Aba (Pappa), are we going to die?” “I answered truthfully because I didn’t want the last thing my son would hear from me to be a lie,” Tal Shoham recounted. I said, “I don’t know.”
Naveh had started to cry. After that, the terrorists separated them. “During the entire 505 days in captivity, I prayed that this sentence would not be the last thing my son would ever hear from me.”
When the terrorists dragged him out of the house, he not only saw dozens of Hamas perpetrators, but also several corpses in the street. They had been murdered in cold blood. Tal was then held in solitary confinement in Gaza for 50 days. He did not know whether his family had been murdered or whether they were still alive. After everything he had seen, he suspected the worst. “I mourned them, each one individually, and said goodbye to them.”
A miracle happened on the 50th day. On this day, one of the terrorists brought him a letter from his wife Adi, from which he learned that she and the children had also been kidnapped but would be released shortly. Adi, Naveh and Yula were released as part of the first hostage deal between Israel and Hamas at the end of November 2023.
“That was the first time I allowed myself to cry,” says Shoham. But now he also knew “that I could from now on start fighting for my own life”.
After 50 days in solitary confinement, he was imprisoned 20 metres underground in a tunnel together with Guy Gilboa- Dalal (24) and Eviatar David (25), who had been kidnapped together and had been friends since childhood. From then on, they shared every crumb, and even if there was only one pita or one cup of rice to eat on some days, it was divided between them down to the gram. Sadistic guards tortured them psychologically and physically the whole time, the lack of vitamins led to a complete loss of muscle strength and inflammation and “we were completely immobilised for a month and a half”. The darkness was oppressive. The humidity meant that our clothes were always wet. There was a hole in the room that served as a toilet. Nothing else. The terrorists sat next door in a well-lit, air- conditioned room and always had plenty to eat, which they liked to show off.
“Not even animals would be kept the way we were treated,” said Shoham. He lost 30 kilograms of body weight.
“I was rescued. I was freed and can hold my wife and children in my arms again.” But his friends—Guy Gilboa-Dalal and Eviatar David—are still in the tunnels, fighting for their lives. Tal is fighting for their release and will not rest until they are free too.
Hamas
In terms of politics, Shoham emphasised that it is important to understand who one is dealing with regarding Hamas. “Hamas is a terrorist organisation that is guided by the belief that Jews have no right to the land of Israel—a belief that has driven them to murder, rape and arson.” Hamas’ most dangerous weapon is not its rockets or its cruelty. “It’s the fundamentalist education they use to raise the next generation of terrorists.” “Weapons can be taken away, but fanatical convictions last a lifetime.” This education rejects the possibility of a state or a people that is not governed by an extreme Islamic law. “There is only ever one acceptable reality: fundamentalist Islam controls the entire Middle East.””
“In Hamas’ value system, human life has no value, “neither Israeli nor Palestinian life”. Under the ground in the Hamas tunnels, he also realised that the civilians in Gaza were also prisoners, “either of Hamas itself or of the fanaticism they grew up with”. The best thing that could happen to the people in Gaza was therefore “liberation from the terrible rule of Hamas”. The international community must reject anything that encourages terrorism. “There is no scenario in which terrorism is legitimate. There is no excuse for what happened on 7 October.” Hamas has called into question the fundamental values of the international community, the values on which the United Nations had once been founded, “I am not sure that the UN is aware of this today”.”
Tal Shoham on 3 April 2025, at the IKG (Jewish Community Centre) in Vienna Photo Marie-Louise Weissenböck
“Despite everything, it was important to Shoham to emphasise that there is always hope. “Hope has brought me back together with my family.” And when he was sitting in the darkness in Gaza, he had no idea how many people were taking the streets for him — including in Austria, and how many people worldwide had stood up for the hostages. He wanted to say thank you.
Tal expressed his biggest gratitude to the Austrian government and in particular former Federal Chancellor Karl Nehammer, former Foreign Minister and Chancellor Alexander Schallenberg and diplomat Peter Launsky-Tieffenthal for their enormous efforts, which had ultimately led to his release.”
