Former Hamas hostage Mia Schem gets engaged one year after she was freed by terror group
· New York PostFormer Hamas hostage Mia Schem celebrated the first anniversary of her freedom from the terror group by getting engaged to her boyfriend.
Schem, 22, who survived 54 days in captivity, announced her engagement to childhood friend Yinon Hassan, 24, Thursday, after he proposed in the coastal city of Caesarea.
Hassan, who began dating Schem after she was freed in the first wave of hostage exchanges last November, got down on one knee and asked for her hand in marriage, The Jerusalem Post reported.
Schem posted photos of the pair holding hands with her engagement ring flashing, along with a picture of the happy couple kissing, on social media.
The post drew a wave of support, with several Israeli restaurants offering to host or cater Schem’s bachelorette party.
Speculations over the couple’s looming engagement erupted in August when Schem agreed to pose in an Israeli designers’ wedding dress campaign, where she openly displayed the scars she suffered during the Oct. 7 terrorist attack.
The French Israeli tattoo artist was among those kidnapped during Hamas’ raid at the Tribe of Nova music festival, where Schem was shot in the right arm.
The 22-year-old was quickly featured in the first round of Hamas propaganda videos, where she was forced to praise the three-hour surgery the terrorists conducted on her arm.
Schem would later reveal that she suffered terrible pains from her wound during captivity, with her abductors doing nothing to help her.
The terrorists also left her in a cage for days and even taunted her by showing her television reports in which her mother could be seen begging for her safe return, she said.
Since her release last year, Schem has become one of the most vocal advocates calling for the release of the remaining hostages in Gaza.
“I must fight for the rest of the hostages — this is my life,” Schem told The Post during her visit to New York earlier this month.
“I feel that I have a mission — to speak, to tell the world my story, for the other hostages who can’t,” she added.
“And to be the voice for the girls who are still there.”