Former hostage Mia Schem describes lasting injuries from captivity
Former Hamas hostage Mia Schem says she is still coming to terms with the physical and psychological effects of her captivity, three years after the 7 October 2023 attack. She describes being shot during her abduction from the Nova festival and says her injured arm remains shorter and permanently damaged.
Schem, 24, says she lost about five litres of blood and was held for 55 days before her release on 30 November 2023. She was the first hostage featured in a Hamas propaganda video, released on 16 October 2023; she also says she struggles to discuss her friend Elia Toledano, whose body was later recovered from Gaza.
- Mia Schem describes lasting injuries from being shot during her abduction.
- She was held captive for 55 days before her release in November 2023.
- She says she is only now beginning to process the trauma.
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Mia Schem, 24, was abducted on 7 October 2023 when Hamas launched an attack on Israel. She was taken from the Nova music festival where she was shot during her capture. She was held in Gaza for 55 days before being released on 30 November 2023.
Hamas is an armed Palestinian group that controls Gaza. The 7 October 2023 assault resulted in hundreds of deaths and more than two hundred people being taken hostage. The hostage crisis that followed became a focal point in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and drew significant international attention.
Schem became the first hostage to be featured in a video released by Hamas, distributed just nine days after her abduction. This made her one of the earliest and most publicly recognised faces of the hostage crisis. Her case has continued to attract attention as a prominent example of the human impact of the conflict on those held captive.
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Originally published by Daily Mail as “October 7 hostage Mia Schem tells the Mail what she thinks of pro-Palestine ‘sheep’ who hate Israel, Drake’s pro-Gaza song and reveals Hamas brutality left her with one arm shorter than the other”.