‘Now she can rest’: Murdered hostage Shani Louk’s parents thankful to have a grave
Louk’s body was recovered Friday by Israeli commandos, seven months after the 22-year-old tattoo artist was killed by terrorists on October 7, and her body abducted to Gaza
German-Israeli Shani Louk’s father has said that finally laying his daughter to rest will be a gift after her body was recovered from Gaza, months after she was killed in Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel.
Louk, a 22-year-old tattoo artist, was celebrating with friends at the Nova music festival just inside Israel before it was attacked by gunmen, who massacred some 360 party-goers, while committing rapes and other atrocities.
Her body was soon seen in a video, slung across the back of a pickup truck, surrounded by gunmen and paraded through Gaza.
On Friday, the Israeli military informed her parents, Nissim and Ricarda Louk, that their daughter’s body had been found by Israeli commandos in Gaza. Nissim Louk said that in order to be sure, he had viewed photos. He praised the “brave soldiers” who found her body.
“We also saw the tattoos on her hands,” he said on Saturday. “Now she will have her own place next to us and we can go there whenever we want. And she can rest.”
He said the funeral would be held on Sunday, which is Ricarda Louk’s birthday.
“I think Shani said ‘Let’s give my mother a birthday present and let’s go back and be close to her,'” he added.
Having Shani’s grave nearby would be a comfort, Ricarda Louk said.
“Maybe we’ll find more peace,” she said.
Nissim Louk said there was also solace in knowing Shani was doing what she loved best before she died, and probably did not suffer. She was pronounced dead by Israeli authorities at the end of October after a piece of her skull was recovered.
Shani was one of more than 360 people who were shot, bludgeoned or burned to death by the Hamas-led terrorists at the Nova festival on October 7.
Videos of a smiling Shani at the party, just before the attack, surfaced in the following weeks.
“She was dancing the whole night. She was so happy,” Nissim Louk said. “She never thought that there is evil in the world because she was a free spirit. She saw it only for a couple of seconds.”
Ricarda Louk said she was pained by what she sees as ignorance and misinformation displayed at some US campus protests against Israel’s war in Gaza.
“It’s horrible for us to see,” she said. “We can tell you from our own experience. We lost our daughter in this massacre.”
“There is no ‘resistance’ that can justify what happened here,” she said.
Besides Louk, the IDF also found in Gaza on Friday the bodies of Itzhak Gelerenter and Amit Buskila, who had been presumed alive until then. It said they had two had been killed by terrorists inside Israel on October 7.
In total, Hamas terrorists killed some 1,200 people on October 7, mostly civilians, and kidnapped 252.
It is believed that 125 hostages abducted by Hamas on October 7 remain in Gaza — not all of them alive, after some were released, a few were freed, and multiple bodies were recovered.
In response to the massacre, Israel declared war on Hamas. The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry says more than 35,000 people in the Strip have been killed or are presumed dead in the fighting so far, 24,000 of which have been identified at hospitals. The tolls, which cannot be verified, include some 15,000 terror operatives Israel says it has killed in battle. Israel also says it killed some 1,000 terrorists inside Israel on October 7.
The Times of Israel Community.