A woman who was taken hostage by Hamas on October 7 and held captive for 54 days has announced her engagement.
Mia Schem shared a kiss with her fiance today as she took to social media to announce her news.
Her engagement comes just two days before the one year anniversary of her release from captivity in Gaza.
The 22-year-old was released alongside eight other hostages on November 30 2023 during a temporary ceasefire between Hamas and Israel.
Taking to Instagram, Ms Schem announced her betrothal with a picture of her engagement ring.
She was also congratulated on the Israeli government’s official X account.
In a post on the platform they wrote: ‘Mazal Tov to Mia Schem and her partner Yinon who got engaged today!
‘Mia is an incredibly brave woman who was held hostage by Hamas for 54 days. Mia, you deserve all the happiness in the world. We love you.’
Mia Schem’s engagement comes just two days before the one year anniversary of her release from captivity in Gaza
Ms Schem being released to the Red Cross in November last year. She was among the most high-profile captees after Hamas released a video in the early days of the war showing her recovering from surgery
Taking to Instagram, Ms Schem announced her betrothal with a picture of her engagement ring
Ms Schem was among the most high-profile captees after Hamas released a video in the early days of the war showing her recovering from surgery.
While she was prisoner, a vet operated on her arm leaving the French-Israeli citizen with a visible scar.
Since her release, Ms Schem has recalled the harrowing conditions she was kept in which included being locked in 5ft-high cage 200ft underground ‘without air and without light’ for five days with several other women.
She also described being marched to the cage for two hours through Gaza’s infamous tunnels, with ‘an armed terrorist in front [and] armed terrorists in back’ after spending 50 days in captivity.
Speaking outside the United Nations National Security Council on November 6, the tattoo artist called on the UN to do more to resolve the hostage crisis.
Ms Schem said: ‘For 50 days, I was kept alone, suffering from an unbearable pain in my hand without any treatment.
‘A Hamas terrorist sat in front of me in a dark room with a gun pointed at my head.
‘Not a single humanitarian agency saw me or treated me even as my arm got worse. Where was the Red Cross? Where was the UN demanding that we have access to us?’
Mia is seen walking with family members at Sheba Medical Center in Ramat Gan, Israel after her release
She was also congratulated on the Israeli government’s official X account. In a post on the platform they wrote: ‘Mazal Tov to Mia Schem and her partner Yinon who got engaged today!’
She continued: ‘In this moment, 60 meters underground with no air, no light, no hope, my friends are still being held by monsters.
‘My heart is still with them, captive in Gaza. I stand here and demand that you bring all of them home now!’
‘It’s been over a year, and the UN has not lifted the finger to free the hostages, she added.
Ms Schem previously opened up about her experience of being held in the 5ft-high cage as she spoke outside the Israeli consulate in New York in October.
Referring to the moment she was locked up, she said: ‘There I met five young women, each with their own horrific abduction story.
‘We spent five days in that dark cage, with two armed guards changing shifts every 12 hours.’
While the 22-year-old was freed in the first round of hostage releases five days later, now more than a year on, the other women are still being held in Gaza.
Terrifying footage showed Ms Schem being surrounded by a screaming mob as she was walked from a car and handed over to Red Cross operatives on November 30 last year.
A person, believed to be a male relative, was seen kissing her forehead after not seeing her for seven weeks.
In the 54 days she was held in Gaza, she was forced to film a propaganda video which showed her receiving treatment for injuries she sustained in her kidnapping from the Nova Festival.
Upon her arrival in Gaza, Ms Schem was bundled into a building where someone operated on her hand. Her family members claimed she had been operated on by a vet.
The 22-year-old said she was locked in a 5ft-high cage 200ft underground ‘without air and without light’ for five days with several other women
‘There was no anaesthesia, no nothing… I choked up from the pain, and [the person performing the operation] looks at me and says, ”Stop it! Or I’ll send you to the tunnels”, she said in a previous interview.
Some 240 hostages were taken from southern Israel into Gaza when Hamas launched its sudden assault on October 7.
More than 1,200 were also killed in the attack as armed gunmen struck residential kibbutzim and the Nova music festival near Re’im.
Hamas released more than 100 hostages during a week-long ceasefire at the end of November last year, most of them agreed as part of a deal with Israel
However, now more than a year on, more than 90 remain unaccounted for.
There are thought to be more than 60 hostages still alive and the bodies of a further 35 held by Hamas.
***
Read more at DailyMail.co.uk