Israeli woman Mia Schem has said she lived through a ‘holocaust’ in her time being held hostage by Hamas in her first interview since being freed.
Mia, 21, was among the young people snatched while partying at the Supernova music festival on October 7.
She spent 54 days trapped by her captors in Gaza – during which she underwent surgery on an injured hand, a procedure her family said was carried out by a vet.
Recalling the operation to Israel’s N12 News, Mia said she received ‘no anaesthetic, no nothing’ and was left ‘choking on [her] own tears’.
She told the interviewer the surgeon had threatened to send her down a tunnel.
The tattoo artist, who also holds French citizenship, became one of the most prominent faces of the hostage crisis in Gaza following the Hamas attacks that killed around 1,200.
She was the first hostage to appear in a video released by the group, a 78-second clip that showed her receiving medical attention on her arm and asking to be returned home.
Mia was reunited with her mother Keren and brother Eli on November 30 following her release.
Her aunt Vivian Hadar told media soon afterwards: ‘A vet operated on her arm.’
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In another interview with Israel’s Channel 13, Mia said: ‘Everyone there [in Gaza] were terrorists.’
She added: ‘Entire families are in the service of Hamas – I suddenly realised I was being held captive by a family.
‘I began asking myself questions: Why am I being held in a family’s household? Why are there children here, why is there a woman here?’
Mia was among 120 hostages released over the course of a week-long ceasefire between Israel and Hamas that took place last month, a group largely made up of women and people with dual nationalities.
The head of psychiatry at a Tel Aviv hospital where some of those released were taken said they present the worst cases of trauma she has come across in her career.
Renena Eitan told the Guardian: ‘I thought that I’d treated the most severe cases there were, but with these patients that came from captivity we couldn’t believe that degree of cruelty.
‘Most of the hostages who came back went through very severe physical and mental abuse … We know that they have a long way ahead of them.’
Earlier this week, around 86 people were killed when an airstrike launched by the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) hit a refugee camp in the centre of Gaza.
The country’s military said it ‘regrets the harm’ caused by the strike, saying it was targeted at Hamas operatives.
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