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Mother Ricarda Louk shows a photo of her daughter Shani: The family is fighting to have her body returned
Photo: Sean Gallup / Getty Images
Shani Louk's death moved many people. The 22-year-old German wanted to celebrate and dance like thousands of other young people at the Supernova festival in southern Israel on the night of October 7th. But then Hamas terrorists attacked the festival in the Negev desert.
Her mother, Ricarda Louk, recognized her from a video showing Shani Louk on a pickup truck between several Hamas men, facing the ground, her legs twisted. Her family assumed she was still alive. But at the end of October there was the sad certainty: splinters of a skull bone could be assigned to her using a DNA sample.
Six months after the terrorist attack, her family is still waiting for the young woman's body. Her mother said this in an interview on the television station WDR.
After the news from the Israeli armed forces, they held a memorial service, said Ricarda Louk. But there has been no funeral to date because her daughter's remains are still in the Gaza Strip. »She is still considered a hostage. Her body is still being held there,” said Ricarda Louk. »We will wait a year, until October 7th. If the body comes back we'll have a proper burial, if not we'll probably make an empty grave."
She continues to hope that Shani Louk's friend Orion will be released alive from being held hostage by Hamas. Her daughter actually wanted to introduce him to the family in October, but then the massacre happened. Several hundred people were killed at the party in the Negev desert alone - the terrorists killed more than 1,200 people in total.
vet/dpa