Former hostage Mia Shem has revealed the harrowing details of her 54-day captivity in Gaza.
Shem claims that Hamas forced her to undergo surgery performed by a veterinarian without anesthesia. The 21-year-old French and Israeli citizen was held captive in ordinary Palestinian civilian homes after being taken during the terror attack on October 7.
Shem was released during a seven-day truce between Hamas and Israel. However, her release was not without its challenges. She was first forced to run a gauntlet of fanatical Hamas supporters, who filmed her and made her say that she had been treated well. In fact, in the first hostage video released by Hamas, she can be seen receiving treatment for her arm, which had been shot during the Hamas assault on the Supernova music festival in Israel.
Speaking in an interview with Israel’s Channel 13, Shem described her experience as a “holocaust.” She emphasized that the Palestinian civilian population is deeply entwined with Hamas. Shem said that she was held in families’ homes, where she saw children and women. She started questioning why she was there when she witnessed the suffering of innocent civilians.
Shem’s ordeal reveals the horrific conditions endured by hostages in Gaza. Currently, 128 hostages are believed to still be in captivity, and reports of American-Israeli Judy Weinstein’s murder have heightened concerns for their safety. Shem’s story is another indictment of Hamas, which has long been accused of terrorizing civilian populations and using them as human shields.
The revelation of the veterinarian surgery without anesthesia is a new level of cruelty. It highlights the brutality of Hamas and the disregard for Shem’s well-being. The fact that she was held captive in Palestinian civilian homes demonstrates the complexity of the hostage situation in Gaza.
