October 7 hostage Mia Schem is engaged! Former captive kisses her partner as she announces joyous news

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 fiancé today as she announced her news on social media.

Her engagement comes just two days before the one-year anniversary of her release from captivity in Gaza.

The 22-year-old was released along with eight other hostages on November 30, 2023, during a temporary ceasefire between Hamas and Israel.

Ms. Schem announced her engagement via Instagram with a photo of her engagement ring.

She was also congratulated by the Israeli government’s official X account.

In a message 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.’

Ms Schem was released to the Red Cross in November last year. She was among the most high-profile prisoners after Hamas released a video showing her recovering from surgery in the early days of the war

Ms. Schem announced her engagement via Instagram with a photo of her engagement ring

Ms Schem was one of the most high-profile prisoners after Hamas released a video showing her recovering from surgery in the early days of the war.

While she was in captivity, a veterinarian operated on her arm, leaving the French-Israeli citizen with a visible scar.

Since her release, Ms Schem has recalled the harrowing conditions in which she was held, including being locked in a 1.80 meter high cage, 60 meters underground, ‘without air and without light’ for five days, along with a number of other women .

She also described being marched to the cage for two hours through Gaza’s infamous tunnels, with “an armed terrorist leading the way.” [and] armed terrorists in the back’ after fifty days of 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 and suffered excruciating 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.

‘No humanitarian organization saw or treated me, even when my arm got worse. Where was the Red Cross? Where has the UN demanded access to us?”

Mia is seen with family members at the Sheba Medical Center in Ramat Gan, Israel after her release

She was also congratulated by the Israeli government’s official X account. In a message on the platform, they wrote: “Mazal Tov to Mia Schem and her partner Yinon who got engaged today!”

She continued, “Right now, 200 feet underground, without air, without light, without hope, my friends are still being held by monsters.

‘My heart is still with them, trapped in Gaza. I stand here and demand that you take them all home now!’

“It’s been more than a year and the UN has still made no attempt to free the hostages,” she added.

Ms Schem previously spoke about her experience of being held in the six-foot cage when 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 kidnap story.

“We spent five days in that dark cage, with two armed guards who changed shifts every twelve hours.”

While the 22-year-old was released five days later in the first round of hostage releases, the other women are still being held in Gaza now, more than a year later.

Terrifying footage shows Ms Schem being surrounded by a screaming crowd as she was walked out of a car and handed over to Red Cross officers 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.

During the 54 days she was held in Gaza, she was forced to film a propaganda video showing her being treated for injuries sustained during her kidnapping during the Nova Festival.

Upon her arrival in Gaza, Ms. Schem was bundled into a building where someone operated on her hand. Her relatives claimed that she was operated on by a veterinarian.

The 22-year-old said she was locked with several other women for five days in a six-foot cage, 200 feet underground, “without air and without light.”

“There was no anesthesia, nothing… I choked in 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 an earlier interview.

About 240 hostages were brought into Gaza from southern Israel when Hamas launched its sudden attack on October 7.

The attack also killed more than 1,200 people as armed gunmen attacked residential kibbutzim and the Nova music festival near Re’im.

Hamas released more than 100 hostages in late November last year during a weeklong ceasefire, most of whom agreed to it as part of an agreement with Israel.

Now, more than a year later, more than 90 are still missing.

More than 60 hostages are believed to be alive and the bodies of another 35 are in the hands of Hamas.