Mother of German woman paraded through streets by Hamas reveals how she was captured

The mother of a young German tattoo artist who was paraded, semi-naked through the streets of Gaza, has revealed how her daughter was captured by Hamas.

Shani Louk, 23, was identified by her family after footage shared on social media showed a woman’s stripped and motionless body in the back of a pick-up truck as armed terrorists celebrated around her.

She was among the victims of a deadly ambush on a music festival which occurred near Kibbutz Urim on Saturday, as part of a multi-pronged attack by Hamas fighters.

At least 260 people were killed when members of the Islamist group opened fire at the Nature Party gathering, with dozens more injured and kidnapped.

It is not yet known whether Shani is alive or dead, but her mother, Ricarda Louk, believes she knows how she was taken.

Ricarda described the moment she recognised her daughter as the captive in the recording, telling CNN’s Anderson Cooper that she had been sent the clip by a friend.

Shani Louk (left) and her mother Ricarda (right) who said she recognised her daughter's tattoos in footage shared to social media@shanukkk/Instagram/Bild

She explained that she last spoke to Shani at around 6am on Saturday, shortly after the rocket fire began, to check that she was OK.

“[Shani] was panicked a little bit and she said she's going to take the car now and go to a safe location,” Ricarda recalled. “And then we stopped talking.”

‘Since then, I [haven’t heard] anything from her,” she continued, adding that the 23-year-old hadn’t picked up her phone.

“A few hours later, we got a video from a friend through social media and we identified our daughter on a pickup truck in the back, lying on the floor with the militant men around her and pushing her down and with arms.”

Asked if that was the last she’d seen of Shani, Ricarda replied that she and her family were desperately searching for news, but so far they hadn’t found anything.

“We saw that somebody tried to use a credit card in the Gaza Strip multiple times. That's all we have,” she said.

However, she added that she had been told by witnesses, who were later rescued, that they saw Shani running to her car in an attempt to flee.

But militants were “standing by the cars and [...] shooting so people couldn't reach their cars even to go away,” Ricarda said.

“And that's when they took her.”

Armed terrorists seen parading woman kidnapped from Israeli music festivalwww.youtube.com

During the interview Ricarda, who is based near Jerusalem, said a number of Shani's friends were also still missing and had probably been kidnapped alongside her.

Asked to describe her daughter, she said: "Shani was such a loving and peace-loving person [...] She likes to travel, she's an artist, she travelled a lot in the world and she has many friends abroad.

“She was there also with a tourist group – with Mexican and Guatemalan and European people – and most of them are also still missing. They have no idea where they are.

“They're probably also kidnapped together with her.”

Admitting she’d grown used to clashes between Israelis and Palestinians having lived in the region for some time, she stressed that she’d still been bowled over by Saturday’s bloody onslaught.

“I don't understand really how such a brutal thing can just happen in the middle of the day,” she said. “It was a complete surprise. I mean, we’ve gotten used to the rockets, we live here with the rockets. We have a kind of routine to go to the safe room and to take care of [ourselves].

“But this was a different attack that nobody was prepared for.”

Ricarda described Shani as a 'peace-loving' artist who had friends all over the world@shanukkk/Gianluca Iarlori Pics/Instagram

Ricarda then explained that, despite living in a “very little town”, two other families in her neighbourhood had suffered unspeakable losses.

Referring to one of the families, she said: “Their son and the daughter-in-law were brutally killed in their beds in their house. And they left two little children, babies, alive alone the whole day there.”

Meanwhile, she said the soldier son of the second family was also killed.

“It's a small town of 200 families maybe, and just the three cases here –it's just terrible,” she said.

“I don’t know, and it happens in every town. There are cases like this, it's just unbelievable. We can't understand it.”

Asked whether she believed her daughter may still be alive, Ricarda said that, based on her appearance in the video, “It looks very bad”.

And yet, she stressed: “I still have hope. I hope that they don't take bodies for negotiations, I hope that she's still alive somewhere.

“We don't have anything else to hope for,” she added. “So I try to believe.”

In a separate video, originally published by German newspaper Bild, Ricarda pleaded for any information relating to her daughter's whereabouts:

Her comments came as friends of Shani, as well as members of the public, shared their devastation at the young artist’s brutal abduction.

Photographer Gianluca Iarlori shared pictures of the 23-year-old, taken at Croatia’s Mo:Dem festival, showing her looking calm and happy.

In a heartbreaking series of posts to Instagram, he wrote: “Dear Shani, I want to remember you like that. Dancing, smiling, celebrating love and life.”

He continued: “I didn't sleep last night. I had stuck in my mind that horrible video, about your body laying helpless in the back of the Hamas terrorists truck.

“You were just having fun in a festival and you ended up being brutally violated by those subhumans.”

He went on: “Our psytrance scene is all about peace, love and freedom.

“We're not supporters of any government who promotes violence, we stand with the whole human race on earth.

“We fight for human rights, we just want to be free and hope the same for every single human being”.

A follow-up post, written by Iarlori or perhaps a different friend in their group, read: “Dear Shani, you were just the first victim of this nonsense violence, in the name of what? A God? An imaginary line to draw on a map? Is this really more important than human life?

“Many people have already passed away and too many are still missing.”

And a third said: “Dear Shani,

“I still can't believe this nightmare.

“I wish to wake up, tomorrow, and see you dancing again, surrounded by our tribe, our brothers and sisters, embracing and celebrating the joy of life in a dancefloor, our happy place.

“Kapara sheli, you'll always be in our hearts.”

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