Israeli-German Girl’s Parents Open Up About Seeing Daughter’s Body Months After She Was Killed In Gaza

The parents of an Israeli-German girl, who was killed in Gaza, opened up about identifying their daughter’s body on Friday, seven months after she was murdered, just a few hours after her remains were recovered in Rafah by Israeli soldiers.

The Israeli army on Friday recovered the bodies of three hostages in the war-torn Gaza Strip who had been “murdered” by their captors on October 7. The 23-year-old Shani Louk was among the three. She was earlier identified in online videos showing a woman lying face down in the back of a pick-up truck filled with armed men before being announced dead later in October.

‘Skin is still the same colour’

“The body that we have now is complete and beautiful and looks like she’s alive actually,” said Shani’s father, Nissim Louk, told the New York Post Friday that the condition of her body was “a miracle.” “I think she’d been in one of the tunnels which was very, very cold…that’s why the body is complete and beautiful and the skin is still the same colour, you still see the tattoos, it’s amazing,” he told The Post as part of a conversation with Rabbi Shmuley Boteach.

Shani’s parents expressed relief that their daughter’s remains are back in Israel following the Oct. 7 attack on Israel, which included a killing spree at the music festival attended by Shani. The Israeli citizens “were taken hostage during the Hamas attack on October 7 and murdered” during the bloody attack on the Nova music festival, he added. Thousands of young people had gathered on October 6 and 7 to dance to electronic music at the festival, which was held near the Re’im kibbutz close to the Gaza border.

Fighters from Palestinian militant group Hamas crossed over and killed more than 360 people at the festival, Israeli officials have said. “This terrible loss is heart-breaking… We will return all of our hostages, the living and the deceased alike,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement after the announcement.

The Nova festival victims accounted for nearly a third of the around 1,170 people killed in the October 7 attack, most of them civilians. Out of the 252 people taken hostage that day, 125 are still being held inside the Gaza Strip, including 37 the army says are dead. Israel has launched a retaliatory offensive against Hamas that has killed at least 35,303 people in Gaza, also mostly civilians, according to data from the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry. The Hostages Families Forum said the recovery of the bodies was a “painful and stark reminder that we must swiftly bring back all our brothers and sisters from their cruel captivity”.

(With agency inputs)