A 21-year-old woman recently released by Hamas after being kidnapped from a music festival in Israel on Oct. 7 has gotten a defiant tattoo that reads, “We will dance again.”
Mia Schem — an Israeli-French tattoo artist who was abducted by Hamas from the Tribe of Nova desert rave and later released as part of a temporary cease-fire between the terror organization and Israel — shared photos of her new ink in a moving Instagram post Saturday night.
The tattoo on Schem’s left forearm reads, “We will dance again” above “7.10.23” to mark the horrific attack, when hundreds of Israelis were killed and she and dozens of others abducted, sparking the start of the Israel-Hamas war.
“I will never forget October 7, 2023,” Schem wrote in the post.
“The pain and the fear, the difficult sights, the friends who won’t come back, and those we must bring back. But we will win, we will dance!”
Schem was among the dozens of partygoers abducted by Hamas from the rave, where Hamas slaughtered nearly 400 other festival-goers.
Soon after the start of the war, she was seen in a chilling video released by Hamas showing her receiving treatment from a veterinarian for a wound on her right arm.
“At the moment, I am in Gaza,” Schem tells the camera in Hebrew in the 60-second clip.
She said she was injured and taken across the border, where she underwent a three-hour surgery to treat her undisclosed injuries.
“They are taking care of me, giving me medicine, everything is fine. I only ask that they bring me home as soon as possible to my parents, to my siblings,” she said in the video. “Get me out of here as soon as possible. Please.”
Schem’s family held a series of press conferences after the video’s release, begging for her safe return.
The young tattoo artist was released by Hamas on Nov. 30 and has since been reunited with her family, who says she is “traumatized” by what was done to her by the terror organization.
“She’s thin, she’s weak,” her aunt, Vivian Hadar, said of Schem, noting, “A veterinarian operated on her arm. She did physical therapy for herself.
“She knew she needed to give herself hand massages,” Hadar explained of her kin, adding that Schem’s hand is still “very sore.”
Her aunt said she is not asking Schem much about what she endured in her nearly 50 days in captivity “because when we started asking, we saw that it was difficult for her.
“We are glad that she is with us,” Hadar said, but “it is difficult to see her in this situation.
“It’s not an easy time,” the aunt said. “It’s not easy what she went through, and we’re looking forward.”
The temporary cease-fire between Israel and Hamas that allowed for Schem’s release ended earlier this month, as the Jewish nation blamed the terror group for violating the truce by launching rockets toward Israeli territory before the agreement expired.
Moments after the cease-fire ended, the Israeli military resumed its attack in Gaza, launching airstrikes on the Palestinian territory for the first time since the pause in fighting began Nov. 24.
