Shani Louk “experienced unfathomable horrors,” according to the Israeli Foreign Ministry. He announced Monday the death of this German-Israeli hostage, kidnapped by Hamas during the October 7 attacks and whose family had called the authorities for help. “We are devastated to report that the death of Shani Louk, a 23-year-old German-Israeli woman, is confirmed,” the Israeli ministry wrote on the social network X, without specifying the circumstances of this discovery.
Shani Louk was kidnapped by Hamas while attending the Tribe of Nova music festival in southern Israel, one of the targets of the Palestinian Islamist movement during the October 7 attacks. “We unfortunately learned yesterday that my daughter was no longer alive,” Ricarda Louk, the young woman’s mother, confirmed to German channel RTL on Monday. She specified that DNA analysis of a bone fragment from the young woman’s skull had made it possible to identify her and believes that her death could date back to the day of the attack.
His skull found
Offering his condolences to Shani Louk’s family, Israeli President Isaac Herzog told the German newspaper Bild that “his skull was found” and that his assassins had “cut off his head”.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz described the news of this death as “terrible”. “Like many others, she was brutally murdered,” he wrote on This is terrorism and Israel has the right to defend itself,” he added.
Humiliation videos
Ricarda Louk, a German living in Israel, had, the day after the attack, launched calls for help to find her daughter, claiming to have recognized her from videos circulating online, because of her distinctive tattoos and of her hairstyle.
These videos showed a semi-naked woman lying, apparently unconscious, face down in the back of a pickup truck. Around her are armed men, one of whom pulls her hair and another spits on her bloody head.
More than 239 people hostage
According to Berlin, several Germans – fewer than ten – are among those killed by Hamas and “a small double-digit number” of hostages with German nationality have been held since the October 7 attacks, in which more than 1,400 people were killed. were killed, mainly civilians, according to the Israeli authorities.
Hamas took more than 239 people hostage during these attacks to which Israel responded by relentlessly bombing the Gaza Strip. The Islamist movement claims that more than 8,000 people, mostly civilians, were killed in Israeli bombings.