The DJ and tattoo artist Shani Louka German-Israeli citizen taken hostage by Hamas during a music festival on October 7, had her death confirmed by the Israeli government this Monday (30).
The attack led by the Palestinian extremist group killed 1,400 Israelis and took around 200 hostages, according to Israeli officials.
According to statements from Louk’s family, the 22-year-old was probably killed before being taken to the Gaza Strip. A fragment of the skull was found at the rave site, in southern Israel, and would indicate a lethal injury, according to statements from the Israeli National Institute of Forensic Medicine to the newspaper Haaretz. The young woman’s body has not yet been found.
Days after the Hamas attack on October 7, a video began to circulate in which a woman face down, half-naked, was taken away in a pickup truck in Gaza. At the time, Louk’s mother said she believed she was her daughter, after recognizing the tattoos and dreadlocks, and recorded a video asking for help to rescue her.
“We assume that she was already dead when she was placed in the truck,” Louk’s aunt told a radio station on Monday. The family believes the death occurred from a gunshot to the head.
The president of Israel, Yitzach Herzogtold the German newspaper Bild that government authorities found Louk’s skull – which he said would be an indication that the victim had been decapitated.
Louk’s mother received the information about her daughter’s death on Sunday night, she says, with mixed feelings. “On the one hand, I felt sadness, because there is no chance of her coming back. On the other hand, at least we have some certainty about what happened. There will be no wake, as we only have small body parts. We hope to be able to bury her in the future,” she said in an interview with an Israeli television channel this Monday.
To the CNN from the United States, the mother described her daughter as a “beautiful and high-spirited” person: “She just loved to laugh, live life, and everything was interrupted very early.”
A video taken at the rave before the attack showed Louk dancing with friends. According to the mother, she spoke to her daughter on the phone for the last time as soon as the shots started, and lost contact when the young woman tried to get to the car to leave.
