Shani Louk's father recalls: "A friend sent a photo, I recognized the small tattoos on her leg"
In a candid interview, the father of the late Shani Louk recalls the days of anxiety: the photo he received from a friend, the moment he recognized his daughter's tattoos, and the discovery by ZAKA volunteers who stopped on the side of the road. "The hardest thing is sitting on Friday night with the family"
Nissim Louk, the father of the late Shani Louk, returned in a conversation with 103FM to the morning of October 7 and the moment he realized that his daughter was the one seen in the footage circulated from the Gaza Strip. Almost three years after the massacre at the Nova festival, he says that it is precisely the simple family moments that illustrate the loss for him more than anything else.
"These were not easy days. I woke up early in the morning after hearing the rockets towards Tel Aviv," he said. Around 10:00, according to him, he received a photo from one of Shani's friends and one question: is this her. "One of Shani's friends sends me this photo and tells me: 'It might be Shani.' I recognized the small tattoos she had on her leg, and her car had indeed entered Gaza and disappeared."
"On Friday night, suddenly a child is missing"
In the conversation, Louk also told about the incident that led to her identification. According to him, two ZAKA members who stopped on the side of the road happened to notice findings that were transferred to the Institute of Forensic Medicine.
"Two ZAKA members who happened to be praying Mincha stopped on the side of the road, and then suddenly they see some hair, dreadlocks like that, and a bit of blood. They did a DNA test and Shani was found. It was really lucky that they stopped there on the spot, found it, and sent it to the Institute of Forensic Medicine."
On May 17, 2024, months after her family was informed that she was no longer alive, IDF and Shin Bet forces recovered Louk's body from the Gaza Strip.
"The hardest thing for me is that on Friday night I do Kiddush with the family and suddenly there is an empty chair," said Louk. He connected this personal feeling to the thousands of families who have lost their loved ones since October 7. "There are 3,000 families here who are doing Kiddush and a child is missing at the table, sometimes two, sometimes three, entire families. 3,000 families are doing Kiddush on Friday night and a child is missing at the table." According to him, every notification of another fallen soldier immediately brings him back to that moment. "Last week two soldiers fell and I am on a broadcast on Channel 11, and I am thinking about what will happen in two hours, when their fathers will do Kiddush and their children will not be around the table."
The photo that went around the world
Shani Louk, a tattoo artist, was among the participants of the Nova festival near Re'im. On the morning of the attack, contact with her was lost, and it later turned out that she had been murdered and her body kidnapped to the Gaza Strip. The footage of her that was circulated that day around the world became one of the most recognizable symbols of the October 7 massacre. One of the photos taken that day by a freelance photographer who worked for the AP agency later won a prize in an international photography competition.
The choice sparked a storm and sharp criticism from the Louk family and from Israeli officials. A petition calling for the prize to be revoked received broad support, and Shani's grandmother, Nicole Louk, publicly protested against the very act of awarding the prize to a photo in which her granddaughter appears.
