‘When I saw my baby on TV, I fell on the floor and screamed’ The anguished words of the mother of Mia Schem, taken hostage at a dance festival exactly two weeks ago today

• Karen Schem hasn’t slept since daughter Mia left a family gathering October 7 
• She has text message daughter sent to one of her friends saying ‘come save us’ 

Keren Schem is living ‘the worst nightmare of every mother in the world’. It is two weeks since her beautiful, ­vibrant daughter, Mia, left a family gathering on the evening of October 6 to dance until dawn in the desert at the Supernova ­music festival, where revellers were celebrating ‘friends, love and infinite freedom’.

But within a few short hours, Hamas ­terrorists had slaughtered at least 260 festival goers and taken hostage goodness knows how many innocents in an atrocity that has shocked the world.

Today, Keren has the copy of a video of her daughter, gorgeous in white trousers and a fringed top, swaying to the music in the desert. She also has a text ­message Mia sent to one of her friends at the ­festival at 7.17am: ‘They are shooting us. Please come save us.’

Keren has not slept since Mia left her aunt’s house where the family was celebrating the end of the week-long Jewish holiday Sukkot. She didn’t kiss her goodbye. Didn’t hug her.

Keren remembers the moment she first saw that video: ‘I saw my sister coming into the room. Her face was pale — white’

Israeli hostage, 21, is seen dancing and smiling at music festival in footage before her kidnap / shared by her family Grabs- Mia Schem video

‘There were a lot of us there — my sisters, my brothers-in-law, all the children. We drank, laughed, ate. Then Mia told me she was going to a festival party in the south. I said: “Where in the south?” She said: “I don’t know yet — the south.”‘ Keren shrugs. ‘I said: “Fine.”‘

‘When Mia stood up and said, “OK Mum. I’m leaving,” I was talking to someone, so I just said: “OK bye.” I didn’t think for a moment I wouldn’t see her again…’

Keren’s voice breaks as tears that fall throughout this impossibly moving interview overwhelm her. She takes ­several deep breaths. You know she’d walk through fire now to have wrapped her arms around her daughter before she walked out the door.

‘Just imagine your daughter going to a festival party — she’s a young girl who just wants to have some fun — and you wake up in the morning, put on the ­television and you see these horrors. You have no idea where she is for hours and hours that then become days.

‘Imagine all the things you think. What might they do to her? Where is she? Why does the world need to be so cruel? We are all people.’

Mia is the young woman who now stands as the face of every one of the estimated 200 innocents being held hostage by Hamas after the terrorists posted a propaganda video showing her being treated for an arm wound and pleading to be set free.

Mia is seen lying on a chair as someone in a white coat bandages her injured arm. In the short clip, she identifies herself as Mia Schem, a dual citizen of Israel and France, and says, in Hebrew: ‘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. Get me out of here as soon as possible. Please.’

Keren remembers the moment she first saw that video: ‘I saw my sister coming into the room. Her face was pale — white. I nearly had a heart attack. I said: “What’s happened?” Within a minute it was on the television. I saw my baby on TV. I fell on the floor and started to scream “Mia, Mia”.’

‘I didn’t see [the entire video] because it was really hard to watch. Then… I felt, “wow, wow. My daughter is alive.” The pain on Keren’s face vanishes as she remembers the euphoria she felt.

Mia is the young woman who now stands as the face of every one of the estimated 200 innocents being held hostage by Hamas

‘When your daughter is missing and you don’t know if she’s alive or dead, you just want her to be alive. When you see that video you’re happy because she’s alive. But, when you watch the video you see it’s horrible. I saw fear. I saw distress. I saw physical pain. I saw she was very afraid.

‘I could see she’d been through some drama. I saw it in her eyes. A 21-year-old is a woman, but when I looked in her eyes I saw a baby. I saw my baby.

‘This doesn’t feel real. There is no reason in the world why a girl who just wants to have fun should wake up in Gaza injured, wondering why her mother is not near her after she’s had an operation. What did she do to deserve this?

‘The world needs to stand up to these monsters. It’s not the Palestinian people. They are not terrorists. They are nice people like us who want to live in peace. It’s the Hamas terrorists who have ruled the Gaza Strip since 2006 and are terrible people — a terrorist organisation who have full control over the Palestinians.’

This interview is taking place on Zoom as there are no flights in or out of Tel Aviv, but Keren’s suffering is as palpable as if she were sitting beside me. I defy anyone — including those at the BBC and the virtue-signalling celebrities who refuse to call out Hamas for the monsters they are — to listen to what has befallen Mia Schem and the hundreds like her and not condemn what is happening in Israel as a terrorist atrocity.

‘The whole country is burning,’ says Keren. ‘I’m consumed by my own pain, but this touches almost everyone in the country. Mia’s friends came to visit me this week. One of them has been to three funerals, the other to one. They are so young.’

Keren is a sensitive, intelligent woman with a remarkable strength. A cinematographer, she has raised four children, including Mia’s brothers, Eli, 23, Ori, 17, and ten-year-old sister Danny, as a single mother since her divorce from their father.

Mia, a creative soul who is learning to be a tattooist, is, she says, ‘like a little mum for her brothers and sister. She likes to take them to the shopping mall — just be together with them. We’re very close. We’re a very warm family.

‘She paints. She’s spontaneous. She’ll cook for Ori at 1am or midnight if she feels like it. You know how young people are today. But she’s very mature. She has the mind of a smart woman.

‘Until this festival, she hadn’t felt like going out for a while. It was the first time she went out [with friends] in two months.’

Keren’s voice catches as she says this. She was asleep when her phone began ringing in the early hours of October 7.

‘It was my mum telling me to put on the TV,’ says Keren. ‘It took me a few hours to realise Mia was there because I didn’t know which festival she was at. On Tuesday [before Hamas released the video of Mia] friends came, so now I know what happened.

‘They told me they were dancing. It was only rockets at first and they didn’t really know what was going on. They went to the car because, in Israel, if you see a rocket you go to the car and go.

‘Then they heard a shotgun and started to realise something bigger was going on. It was a huge, open space. No one knew where to drive so everyone drove in different directions. Some were lucky and went the right way.

‘Others were stuck in the traffic. The terrorists were waiting for them. Everyone thought it was the police. When they got there the terrorists started to shoot them. They collected people and burnt the cars. The only other thing I knew [until the video] was that she sent the text message to her friend at 7.17am.

Keren, mother of Mia Schem and representatives of the families of the abducted and missing persons held by Hamas militants in Gaza hold a press conference

Keren’s pain is so overwhelming you want to reach out and comfort her, but you know that there will be no comfort until she holds her eldest child again. Pictured, Mia as a baby

‘Then there were rumours. Some people said she was shot in the shoulder. Some said she was shot in the leg. Her friends, who I’d never met before, said: ‘She was shot but we know she’s alive because Mia is a fighter’.’

‘[Before the video] I knew in my heart she was, too. She is a real fighter. Then they released the video. Can you imagine what she’s going through? I can’t. I really can’t.’

Keren has not returned to her family home since her daughter was abducted. She needs clean clothes but can’t bring herself to go there, because Mia will be everywhere.

Instead, she stays with Mia’s siblings at her sister’s house, where family and friends gather as much information as they can in the hope of finding and saving her.

The younger children, including Mia’s cousins, are desperately affected by the horror that has devastated their family. Keren knows her ten-year-old daughter, Danny, in particular needs her support.

‘I have such guilt I don’t give her the attention she needs,’ she says. ‘I’m trying, but it’s really hard. I can’t sleep; when I get into bed I just think about her.

‘During the day I’m so busy doing all I can to bring Mia back, I manage. But, at night, the pain is too big. I just take my small child, hug her and cry so much. I don’t like to cry but it’s hard — really hard.’

Keren’s pain is so overwhelming you want to reach out and comfort her, but you know that there will be no comfort until she holds her eldest child again.

‘I will see her again and not just my baby, I will see everybody back because I do believe most of us are human,’ she says. ‘We will stand up and do something about this because it’s terrible.

‘I’m not doing interviews like this for fun. I want the world to know what me, my Mia and all the citizens in Israel are going through. We need to do all we can to get my baby and all the kidnapped babies, children, young people, sick people and everyone back.

‘You need to help us bring them back. I need Mia to come home. I have to hug her. I will kiss her again. I will.’

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