Freed Israeli hostage Mia Schem ‘experienced hell’ in Gaza

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A woman shot in the arm and taken hostage by Hamas while attending a music festival in Israel is describing the “hell” she experienced while in captivity.

Mia Schem, a 21-year-old French-Israeli, spoke in depth for the first time since being released in a hostage exchange in late November.

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“It’s important to me to reveal the real situation about the people who live in Gaza, who they really are, and what I went through there,” she told Israel’s Channel 12 and 13 news in two separate interviews, according to a translation by The Times Of Israel.

“I experienced hell. Everyone there are terrorists … there are no innocent civilians, not one. (Innocent civilians) don’t exist.”

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Schem was attending the Supernova music festival on Oct. 7 when Hamas-led terrorists stormed southern Israel and killed more than 1,200 people.

Schem recounted the day of the attack, describing how she and a friend got into her car and tried to escape when rockets were launched.

While she was driving, her friend screamed, “They’re shooting,” she recalled. “I hit the gas to try and pass them but they shot the tires and the car stopped.”

A truck of armed terrorists drove by, “and one of the Hamas members looked at me, and just shot me in the arm, at a very, very close range,” she said.

“I was on the floor, covered in blood, and I screamed, ‘I lost my hand, I lost my hand.’”

She said the terrorists then took her friend, Elia Toledano, captive to Gaza with his arms tied behind his back. His body was recovered by Israel Defence Forces earlier this month.

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When she was taken to Gaza, Schem said she was pulled by her hair and shoved her into a hospital room where they “stretched out my arm, tied it up on a piece of plastic, and that’s how I was for three days,” adding she was “sure that they were going to amputate my arm.”

Schem said she received medical treatment “without anesthesia, nothing,” she told Channel 12 news, while telling Channel 13 news that they “put me under.”

The person who operated on her told her she was not going home alive.

Following the operation, Schem was told to wear a hijab and was taken to be held in a family home, she told Channel 13.

“I began asking myself questions: Why am I in a family home? Why are there children here? Why is there a woman here?” she said.

A day after receiving treatment for her injured arm, Schem was forced to film a propaganda video.

“They told me to say that they were taking care of me and treating me … you do what you’re told. You’re afraid to die.”

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