The young woman of German and Israeli nationality Shani Louk, whose half-naked and seemingly lifeless body was displayed in a video widely circulated on social networks after the surprise attack on Israel by Hamas militants, has appeared seriously injured in a hospital in Gaza, reports ARD . Her mother, Ricarda Louk, a German who has lived in Israel for 30 years, released a video in which she asked Chancellor Olaf Scholz for help in finding her daughter. In it he states that he has learned that Shani is in a critical condition due to a head injury and calls on the German authorities to act quickly to get her out of Gaza as quickly as possible.
The images of Shani Louk went viral on Sunday afternoon when a shocking short video began circulating on social media in which a young woman was seen lying half-naked, helpless, with her legs twisted and face down in the back of a truck. In it, several men, apparently Hamas militiamen, show it on the street while shouting “Allahu akbar” (God is great). Others come to cheer her on; One of them spits on the woman’s body.
The 22-year-old’s family recognized her by her tattoos and her hair styled in long dreadlocks. In a first video, her mother asked for help finding her and hoped she was still alive. The images caused shock in Germany, where Shani Louk’s mother’s family comes from. The young woman was one of the participants in the open-air electronic music festival Tribe of Nova, known as the Peace Festival, which took place over the weekend near the Reim kibbutz (agricultural cooperative) in a rural area in southern Israel near the strips.
The Hamas attack surprised Louk and hundreds of participants early Saturday when members of the Islamist group stormed in and fired into the crowd. At least 260 bodies have been recovered by Israeli emergency services and an unknown number of young people are still missing. They could have been kidnapped and taken to Gaza. Authorities have confirmed that Louk was among those abducted, but his condition was unknown until Tuesday.
“I am the mother of the kidnapped Shani Louk,” says Ricarda Louk in the video broadcast on German public television. “We now have further information that Shani is alive but has a serious head injury and is in a critical condition. Every minute is vital. And we demand, no, we demand quick action from the federal government. Questions of competence do not need to be discussed. “We have to act quickly to get Shani out of the Gaza Strip,” she says in a short message, a “desperate appeal,” she says, “to all of Germany” to help her bring back her daughter, who has dual citizenship and a double will has She has always lived in Israel, safe and sound.
On the other hand, the General Prosecutor’s Office has initiated an investigation against Hamas for the kidnapping and murder of German citizens in the attack on Saturday in southern Israel. The investigation is currently focusing on unknown members of the Islamist organization. The federal government has not yet provided official figures on the number of missing German citizens, but has confirmed that there are several people killed and kidnapped by Hamas. Among them is Carolin Bohl, 22, who was killed in an attack on Kibbutz Nir Or near the Gaza border, according to German media. Scholz assured this Tuesday during an appearance with French President Emmanuel Macron that the German authorities were working “intensively” to clarify the whereabouts of the hostages.
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