Body of dead festival goer Shani Louk among three found in Gaza
The body of Shani Louk, who became the face of the Hamas attack on an Israel music festival, has been found with three others.
The body of an Israeli woman who became the face of the October 7 Israel music festival massacre has been found in Gaza.
She was one of three bodies taken to Gaza that Israel said it had recovered on Friday, local time.
Shani Louk, 22, a German-Israeli dual national and tattoo artist was last seen at the Supernova music festival near Kibbutz Urim, Israel, on October 7. On that day, Hamas attacked the festival, killing at least 364 people and taking 40 hostage.
Ms Louk, was identified in online videos showing a partly-naked woman lying face down in the back of a pick-up truck filled with armed men.
It had been thought that Ms Louk had been taken hostage by Hamas.
But she was declared dead on October 30 after a fragment of her skull was found at the site of the festival bloodbath. However, her body wasn’t recovered and had been held hostage in the ensuing war.
Almost 1200 people were killed by Hamas on October 7 which led Israel to start military action. The ensuing war has led to the death of more than 35,000 Palestinians.
On Friday, the Israeli army said that troops had recovered the bodies of three hostages in the war-torn Gaza Strip who had been “murdered” by their captors on October 7, including Ms Louk.
“Last night, the Israel Defence Forces (army) rescued the bodies of our hostages Shani Louk, Amit Buskila and Itzhak Gelerenter,” military spokesman Daniel Hagari said in a televised address.
The Israeli citizens “were taken hostage during the Hamas massacre 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 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 1170 people killed in the October 7 attack, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli figures.
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”.
Ms Buskila, who was also captured while partying at the festival, was on a call to her uncle Shimon, who heard his niece beg her kidnappers not to take her away.
Originally published as Body of dead festival goer Shani Louk among three found in Gaza
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