A young German-Israeli woman who was widely believed to have been killed after she was abducted by members of Hamas when the group stormed a music festival in Israel on Oct. 7 is alive and in a hospital, her mother has said.
Ms. Louk was kidnapped alongside roughly 260 others while attending a music festival near Kibbutz Re'im in Israel last week when Hamas launched a surprise attack.
“We now have reasons to believe that Shani is alive but has had a severe head injury and is in critical condition. Every minute is critical,” Ms. Louk told the publication.
The mother also desperately called on German authorities to intervene and help bring her daughter back safely.
“We haven’t had any information from the authorities here. Peace activists have told us that Shani will now only get help if the German authorities officially intervene,” Ms. Louk said no such help from German authorities has arrived in Gaza thus far.
“We shouldn’t argue about questions of jurisdiction now,” she said of the government. “You have to act quickly and get Shani out of the Gaza Strip!”
Graphic Video Footage Emerges
According to her family, the 22-year-old, who has relatives in Ravensburg, Baden-Württemberg, was attending the music festival near Kibbutz Re'im alongside friends and her Mexican boyfriend Orion Hernández when Hamas began its attack; storming into Israeli towns close to the Gaza border and killing over 700 Israelis and kidnapping dozens more during an hours-long rampage.During the incident, the young Ms. Louk, who is a tattoo artist, called her family and explained she was looking for shelter.
According to her mother, gunshots could be heard in the background and Ms. Louk appeared to be confused.
Contact was soon cut off, her mother said.
The family later discovered that Ms. Louk had fled the scene and into a parking lot alongside her boyfriend and friend with the hopes of escaping in two separate vehicles but that she ultimately lost her friends, who have since resurfaced and are safe.
Germany Probing Alleged Hamas Members
The Epoch Times has not been able to independently verify the video footage.However, Ms. Louk’s family told Bild the young woman in the video was likely the tattoo artist, noting she is easily identifiable due to her dreadlocks and distinctive tattoos.
The young woman and her family live roughly 80 kilometers from the Gaza Strip, the publication reports.
Multiple other Germans with Israeli nationality were among those kidnapped by Hamas militants during the weekend attack, according to reports.
On Tuesday, German prosecutors confirmed in a statement to multiple publications they were launching an investigation into “unidentified members of the radical Palestinian Islamist organization Hamas” over suspicions “of belonging to a foreign terrorist group, hostage-taking, and murder.”
Meanwhile, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz told a news conference on Tuesday that Berlin was working “intensively” with Israeli authorities regarding those who are kidnapped and missing.
“We are trying to do as much as possible to ensure the freedom, the lives, and the health of these citizens,” Mr. Scholz said.
