A young German-Israeli woman who is widely believed to have been kidnapped by members of Hamas when the group stormed a music festival in Israel on Oct. 7 is dead, the Israeli government announced on Monday.
In a statement on X, formerly known as Twitter, on Oct. 30, the Israel Foreign Ministry said it was “devastated” to share the news that the body of 23-year-old Shani Louk had been found and identified.
We are devastated to share that the death of 23 year old German-Israeli Shani Luk was confirmed.
— Israel Foreign Ministry (@IsraelMFA) October 30, 2023
Shani who was kidnapped from a music festival and tortured and paraded around Gaza by Hamas terrorists, experienced unfathomable horrors.
Our hearts are broken 💔.
May her memory… pic.twitter.com/svSArX3XSx
“Shani who was kidnapped from a music festival and tortured and paraded around Gaza by Hamas terrorists, experienced unfathomable horrors. Our hearts are broken. May her memory be a blessing,” the ministry added.
Separately, Israeli President Isaac Herzog confirmed Ms. Louk’s death to Germany’s Bild newspaper.
“I am really sorry to report that we have now received news that Shani Nicole Louk has been confirmed murdered and dead,” he said. “What we saw on the Gaza–Israel border goes far beyond a pogrom. We saw a slaughterhouse.”
Ms. Louk was kidnapped alongside roughly 260 others while attending a music festival near Kibbutz Re’im in Israel with her friends and her Mexican boyfriend Orion Hernández when Hamas launched a surprise attack.
The young woman, who has relatives in Ravensburg, Baden-Württemberg, called her family to let them know she was trying to seek safety during the attack, and ran into a parking lot alongside her boyfriend and friend with the hope of escaping in two separate vehicles.
Video Footage Emerges
However, Ms. Louk’s family lost touch with her and only her friends resurfaced from the incident safely.
Graphic video footage later emerged online which appeared to show Ms. Louk’s naked and motionless body lying face down in the back of a pick-up truck surrounded by armed fighters as she was paraded through the streets.
In the video footage, Ms. Louk’s legs appeared to be at unnatural angles while one man grabbed her hair. Some of the men in the video appeared to spit on the tattoo artist.
