In the power of Hamas
Mother of abducted German asks for help
October 8, 2023, 5:15 p.m
Shani Louk visits an electronic festival in southern Israel with friends. Then Hamas fighters storm the area. A video is said to show the German on a terrorist truck. The 22-year-old’s family fears for the young woman’s life and is turning to the public.
A German woman is among the victims of the radical Islamic Hamas in Israel. 22-year-old Shani Louk has been missing from her family since Saturday. The young woman’s mother announced this in a video message that was circulating on social networks. In it she asks for help and information to find her daughter again. The 22-year-old was at a music festival in southern Israel when Hamas fighters attacked the country and also attacked festival guests. Many people are still missing there.
It is unclear whether Shani Louk is still alive. Her family recognized her on a video that showed her lying half-naked on a truck, the “Spiegel” reported. In the clip you can see men trampling on a woman’s lifeless body. One pulls her hair, another spits on her bleeding head. The men shout “Allahu Akbar”, “Allah is great”. Then the jeep speeds away. The young woman’s mother, Ricarda Louk, assumes that she was abducted and is still alive, wrote the “Spiegel”. The 22-year-old is easy to recognize because of her eye-catching tattoos and her dyed hair.
According to the report, Shani Louk has never lived in Germany, but has visited her grandparents in Ravensburg in Baden-Württemberg several times. Her mother, a Catholic who later converted to Judaism, emigrated to Israel. The Jewish father is Israeli. The family lives about 80 kilometers from the Gaza Strip. The young woman therefore has German citizenship.
During Hamas’ major attack on Israel on Saturday, Shani Louk was with friends at the music festival near Kibbutz Reim, her mother told “Spiegel”. She called her daughter when the first Hamas rockets flew. The young woman replied that they would look for shelter. The family didn’t hear from her again after that. However, her credit card was later used in Gaza.
Israeli media reported that Hamas fighters shot into the celebrating crowd at the festival. Videos circulating online showed hundreds of young people fleeing the gunfire early in the morning.
According to a report in the “Bild” newspaper, Shani Louk’s aunt, her partner and her grandfather also hope that the young woman is still alive and will be released in Ravensburg. Winfried Gehr, who is in a relationship with Shani’s aunt, told the newspaper that the young woman organized the festival together with her Mexican boyfriend: “They traveled all over the world with it. The terrorists have, of all people, a German girl who is always for peace fought and didn’t join the army. A boy spat on her, so you can see how big the hatred is.”
According to the report, the family made their daughter’s German citizenship public because they hoped for help from the German authorities. Because Shani Louk is just one case among dozens in Israel: According to the Israeli government, around 100 Israelis, including numerous women, children and old people, were abducted to the Gaza Strip.