A released Israeli hostage shared her harrowing experience of being held captive by Hamas fighters in Gaza for 54 days. Mia Schem said she “lived through a holocaust.”
“It was important for me to convey the truth about the nature of the people living in Gaza, who they really are and what I experienced there,” she said in her interview with Channel 13. “I lived through a holocaust . Everyone there is a terrorist,” the 21-year-old said.
54 | מחר ב-20:00 במהדורה המרכזית@liorveropic.twitter.com/mrkXwTDIzx
— חדשות 13 (@newsisrael13) December 28, 2023
Mia Schem said she was kidnapped from a music festival in southern Israel on October 7 and held captive by a civilian family in Gaza linked to the Palestinian group.
“Suddenly I realized I was with a family,” she said. “Suddenly I'm asking myself questions: why am I in a family's house? Why are there children here? Why is there a woman?”
In a separate interview with Channel 12 News, Mia Schem said she felt “like an animal in the safari.”
While held captive, she was treated by a veterinarian for a gunshot wound to her arm, the New York Post reports. In a chilling video released by Hamas at the time, she was heard pleading: “They are taking care of me, giving me medicine, everything is fine. I just ask that they take me home to my parents, to my brothers and sisters, as soon as possible. Get me out of here as quickly as possible. Please.”
Mia Schem was released during a prisoner and hostage exchange during a temporary ceasefire between Israel and Hamas. After her release, she made a striking appearance on Instagram, with a new tattoo with the defiant message: “We will dance again”, including the date of the attack.
“We will never forget,” she wrote in the caption. “The pain and the fear, the difficult sights, the friends who won't come back, and the ones we have to bring back. But we will win, we will dance!” she added.
Hamas' attack on Israel on October 7 reportedly took around 240 hostages, killing around 1,200 people.