Mia Schem, a French-Israeli woman who was abducted from the Supernova music festival in Israel and shown in the first Hamas video of a hostage speaking from captivity, has been released.
She was one of eight hostages released in two tranches on Thursday.
Schem, 21, who had been training to be a tattoo artist, was shown in a 78-second video broadcast on Hamas’s Telegram channel last month with an injured arm that was being treated by an unidentified medical worker. In the clip, she asked to be returned to her family as soon as possible.
Thousands of young people were partying in the dawn hours of 7 October when Palestinian militants opened fire. Hundreds were killed and 40 people were taken hostage, according to Israeli police.
Schem’s mother, Keren, who had campaigned for her release, was filmed by the Israeli channel N12 on Thursday sobbing on the phone and rushing to hug her other children after the news that she had been freed. Schem’s father, David, told the channel: “First, her mother is going to jump on her, and then I’ll come and hold her in my arms. I won’t say a word … I don’t want to ask questions. I don’t know what she’s been through.”
In a statement, the family thanked everyone who had worked for the release and asked for “calm and quiet” in the coming days while Schem receives medical treatment in hospital before she is able to go home.
The French president, Emmanuel Macron, wrote on X: “I share this great joy with her family and all French people.”
Schem, who had completed her military service, lived in the town of Mazor, east of Tel Aviv. “She’s just a young woman who wanted to have fun, dance, and who ended up being shot at and kidnapped,” her mother had told the French news channel France Info.
On a website campaigning for her release, Schem was described as very creative. “Everything she touches turns to gold,” her mother said. The second of four children, Schem had gone to the music festival with friends including Elya Toledano, also French-Israeli, who is still missing, presumed held hostage.
Another hostage, Amit Soussana, 40, was released with Schem and handed to the Red Cross in Gaza City.
On 7 October, Soussana, a lawyer, was at home sick with a fever at the apartment where she lived alone on the Kfar Aza kibbutz. She was in contact with her family, saying she heard shooting. “They’re attacking the kibbutz,” she wrote in a message. She said there were gunmen outside her window. “It’s scary, it doesn’t seem real.” She said she was going to hide in a wardrobe in her safe room.
It was confirmed she was being held hostage in Gaza on 29 October, 22 days after she went missing. Her cousin Lia Nurit Artman said that in footage of Soussana being handed over to the Red Cross “you see a scared, thin and weak girl”. She told Channel 12 that the family recognised her from the first moment. “We were just happy to see her back,” she said. The family were “extremely excited, it’s hard to digest this moment”.
Late on Thursday night a further six hostages were also released. They were named as Aisha Ziyadne, 17, Bilal Ziyadne, 18, Nili Margalit, 40, Shani Goren, 29, Sapir Cohen, 29, and Ilana Gritzewsky, 30.
