The mother of Shani Louk, a 22-year-old German national believed to have been kidnapped by Hamas fighters during the militant group’s surprise attack on Israel on Saturday, said on Tuesday that her daughter is alive.
Louk, a tattoo artist, was attending the Tribe of Nova music festival in the plains of the Negev Desert near Urim, close to the Gaza Strip, on Saturday when Hamas fighters stormed the event. She’s believed to have been seized by the militants and paraded through the streets in the back of a pick-up.
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On Tuesday, Louk’s family announced they had proof that Louk—who grew up in Israel—was alive. German news website Blick reported that her mother said she was in a hospital in Gaza with serious head injuries.
“We now have more information that Shani is alive,” her mother told television channel NTV, adding she received the information from unnamed Palestinian sources.
The mother added that Louk is seriously injured, and asked the German government for help and quick action.
Nobody said anything about her being raped, and never said anything about her life being over. She was present during a mass-killing, was brutalized in the process, and she is now being held captive by a terrorist group. Even if Hamas wasn’t raping their victims (which they absolutely are), living through this will, without a doubt, change the trajectory of a person’s life.
It blows my mind that there are people who think mental recovery from things like this is a simple, easy process. Imagine all the horrors of war without any of the training and purpose of cause that allow you to cope just a bit and most still suffer from severe PTSD from that. She just got more trauma crammed into one week than many will see in their entire lives, with more to come and maybe more previously we don’t know about. Her life isn’t over, and it could eventually be fine. But it will be different.