The parents of Shani Louk, the 23-year-old tattoo artist killed by Hamas and paraded half-naked through Gaza like a trophy, described identifying their daughter’s body seven months after she was murdered by terrorists — hours after her remains were recovered in Rafah by Israeli soldiers.
“The body that we have now is complete and beautiful and looks like she’s alive actually,” said Shani’s father, Nissim Louk, telling The 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 color, you still see the tattoos, it’s amazing,” he told The Post as part of a conversation with Rabbi Shmuley Boteach.
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Shani’s parents expressed relief that their daughter’s remains are back in Israel following the horrific Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel — which included a massacre at the Super Nova music festival Shani was attending.
“The army came and told us that the body of Shani was found and brought back to Israel…we’re happy that she’s back and can bury her properly,” said Shani’s mother Ricarda Louk.
“The body is back, we can bury her. It’s a little bit of relief we know where her body is and that she will be here in Israel buried,” she said, noting that they had been in the process of building a memorial statue in their honor when they learned she was coming home.
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“So we feel she is always with us. We feel her. She is happy to come back to Israel and close the circle. I’m happy to have her close by.”
Hamas massacred 364 Israeli concert-goers at the Nova music festival in Re’im on Oct. 7 as part of the terror group’s mass-scale terror attack that day.
They also abducted around 240 hostages — dozens of whom are still in Gaza.
Shani’s family announced in late October that she had died at the hands of Hamas, with Israel’s President Isaac Herzog later revealing to a German newspaper that she had been beheaded.
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After Shani was kidnapped from Nova, her half-naked lifeless body was placed into the bed of a pickup truck and driven around Gaza by Hamas militants in disturbing images that were transmitted around the world.
Her grisly killing at the hands of terrorists and images of how they treated her afterwards, coupled with pictures of the young tattoo artist enjoying herself at the music festival before her death, sparked global outrage and came to symbolize the depraved depths of Hamas terrorists on Oct. 7.
“We are lucky that these two pictures were all over the world. One of them is very cruel…I’m happy that my daughter Shani is connected to the picture because the picture shows the light from one side, which is Shani, and the other side of the photo shows militants, which is darkness,” Nissim said.
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“And I’m happy to have such a kid, you know? God created me just for this purpose…So the people in the world will see what is right.”
Ricarda said her daughter’s death sent a message to the world.
“The message is really that people wake up and see what happened here, so many innocent, young people celebrating peace and love and music who were really butchered like this in such a way that no other country would have accepted this,” Ricarda said.
“It’s just horrific… it’s unimaginable what they did here. Everybody needs to know exactly and inform themselves what really happened.”
Even in death, Shani continues to inspire Israeli soldiers on the front line to press on.
“One soldier told me that he went to Gaza to fight after he saw the picture of my daughter because he said, ‘it cannot be, such a thing’, you know?” Nissim described an interaction with a member of IDF.
“A guy I met, a soldier that was wounded, he said, ‘you know, I’m fighting and I’m always thinking about what happened to your daughter.”
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Israel estimates that around 100 hostages remain in Gaza, in addition to the bodies of approximately 30 more.
In a post on X Friday announcing the return of three former Hamas hostages killed by the terror group including Shani, Amit Buskila and Yitzhak Gelernter, IDF said, “We will continue operating to bring all of our hostages home.”
