Woman, 23, Found Dead After Being Kidnapped and Tortured by Hamas, Israel Says

A picture of Shani Nicole Louk is displayed during a demonstration by family members and supporters of hostages who are being held in Gaza after they were kidnapped from Israel by Hamas terrorists, in Tel Aviv, Israel, on Oct. 28, 2023. (Ammar Awad/Reuters)

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.

“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.

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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.

Despite the emergence of the horrifying video footage, Ms. Louk’s mother, Ricarda Louk, had initially been positive that her daughter had survived the brutal kidnapping after receiving information from Palestinian sources who told her that her daughter was alive.

They warned, however, that the young woman had suffered severe injuries and was in critical condition in a hospital in Palestinian territory.

At the time, the older Ms. Louk called on German authorities to intervene and help bring her daughter back safely.

‘This Thing Is Over, We Know Exactly What Happened’

Ms. Louk’s mother also confirmed her daughter’s death to German broadcaster RTL on Monday, noting that relatives had been informed by the Israeli military.

According to her mother, Ms. Louk’s body was identified through DNA analysis of a skull bone.

It is unclear exactly where the fragment of her skull was found but the older Ms. Louk said she now believes her daughter was likely killed on the day of the attack.

Ms. Louk’s father told Channel 13 that the confirmation of his daughter’s death had in some ways come as a relief.

“I’m happy. First, that this thing is over, that we know exactly what happened,” he said. “Because I know where she is, she isn’t lying in some tunnel under Gaza, where every minute we are firing at them and all the earth is shaking and there is dust and it’s impossible to breathe.

“We know she is dead, we know she didn’t suffer, we also know a minute before the murderers came she was dancing, she was happy, she prayed, she went wild, with all her friends around her, and she had fun,” he said.

Hamas has not commented on the abduction or reported death of Ms. Louk.

More than 1,400 people, mostly civilians, were killed during the Hamas terrorist attacks on Israel on Oct. 7.

Since then, more than 7,000 Palestinian civilians, the majority of whom are women and children, have been killed by Israeli forces, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.

Reuters contributed to this report.