Ειδήσεις Ελλάδα
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Keren Shem got her first glimpse of her missing child when everyone else did. She saw her daughter, Mia Shem, in a hostage Monday — the first time Hamas had publicly released a clip of one of the roughly 200 hostages the militants are holding in the Gaza Strip.
The mother screamed and fell to the floor when she saw Mia’s face on her TV. She started to sing and cry, telling herself her 21-year-old French Israeli daughter had survived after vanishing Oct. 7 from a music festival targeted by Hamas militants. Then she grew scared.
“I could see she was shot in the shoulder,” Keren Shem told reporters Tuesday at a news conference. It seemed as though her daughter was saying only what her kidnappers were telling her to say, she added. “I didn’t know if she was dead or alive until yesterday.”
Holding a photo of her daughter, Keren Shem was flanked by two of Mia’s brothers, who also called for the return of their sister.
The family and its spokespeople have transliterated their names as both Shem and Schem but used the former spelling on place cards at the news conference Tuesday.
The , and the family’s confirmation of Mia’s identity, come as Israel prepares for a potentially deadly ground invasion of Gaza and President Biden prepares to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The Hamas attacks have killed at least 1,400 people in Israel and injured more than 4,120, authorities said. Roughly 3,000 people in Gaza have been killed and more than 12,500 wounded, according to Palestinian officials.
The mother of Mia Schem, a French-Israeli hostage in Gaza, urged world leaders on Oct. 17 to bring home all captives seized in the Oct. 7 attack in Israel. (Video: Reuters)
A spokesman for the militant group said Tuesday that the hostages held by Hamas face the “same danger and conditions” as people living in Gaza. Hamas has also claimed that some of the hostages have been killed by Israeli strikes, a claim that could not be confirmed.
The United Nations has called for the release of all prisoners, saying that hostage-taking is prohibited under international law. A senior Hamas official suggested Tuesday the militant group would release its hostages at “the right time” after the war.
French President Emmanuel Macron called for Shem’s immediate and unconditional release, decrying the as offensive in a Tuesday statement.
White House national security spokesman John Kirby said Shem was probably coerced to speak in the . “It’s a propaganda much more than it is proof of life,” Kirby said Tuesday on NBC News’s “Today.”
The Washington Post could not independently verify when the was recorded or Shem’s current condition. But Keren Shem said she felt the was a sign of optimism for her daughter, even as it’s clear that other hostages need medical care for potentially life-threatening injuries.
In the , Mia Shem is shown receiving treatment for an arm injury. She then tells the camera in Hebrew she is in Gaza and underwent a medical procedure there for three hours. She pleads to be returned home.
According to her mother, Mia Shem was kidnapped at a music festival in southern Israel that turned into a deadly massacre in which hundreds were killed and many were captured. Mia had gone with a friend “to have some fun,” her mother said.
Soon after 7 a.m. that Saturday, Mia had sent a text: “They are shooting at us, come save us.”
It’s not clear what happened next. The status of Mia’s friend is also unclear.
Keren Shem said she has barely slept since the day the festival was attacked. She said her daughter loves to cook and make her friends and family happy.
The Israel Defense Forces said in a statement after the ’s release that it had notified the Shem family of Mia’s abduction after the kidnapping.
“In the published by Hamas, they try to portray themselves as humane,” the IDF wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter. “However, they are a [horrific] terrorist organization responsible for the murder and abduction of babies, children, men, women and the elderly.”
When asked at the news conference whether she was worried Israel’s planned ground invasion could harm her daughter, Keren Shem said she was trying to focus on her daughter and called for all the hostages to be returned home and given medical care.
“I’m trying not to think about the invasion into Gaza,” she said. “All I’m asking from the leaders of the world is to return my baby home in the exact condition I saw her on TV.”
Noga Tarnopolsky contributed to this report.
