Shani Louk in Israel: This is what is known about the German abductees

According to official Israeli government figures, at least 100 people have been kidnapped by Palestinians in Israel. The Foreign Office in Berlin said that, according to the Foreign Ministry’s findings, these included people who had Israeli as well as German citizenship. The German embassy in Tel Aviv is coordinating very closely with the Israeli authorities. We also ask for your understanding that, in order to protect the people affected, we cannot comment publicly on either the number or individual cases.

Several relatives have shared desperate cries for help: On Sunday, a video appeared online of an abducted German woman – Shani Louk, 22. According to her family, the young woman has been missing since Saturday. The family doesn’t have any news yet, they don’t know whether she’s still alive or where she is. “This morning my daughter was kidnapped with a group of tourists in the south of Israel,” explains Ricarda Louk in a video message published on the Twitter account “Visegrád 24”. “We were sent a video where I could clearly recognize our daughter. Unconscious, in the car with the Palestinians as they drove into the Gaza Strip.” She desperately asks for help, information, news.Since Hamas’ attack on Israel, the mother has no longer had contact with her daughter, who was at a music festival in Israel near the Gaza Strip. Louk and her daughter live in Israel.

The hostage’s credit card is said to have been used in Gaza

Shani Louk’s family has roots in Ravensburg. According to “Spiegel”, Shani Louk herself has never lived in Germany, but has visited her grandparents in Ravensburg in Baden-Württemberg several times. Her mother emigrated to Israel thirty years ago. The Jewish father is Israeli. The family lives about 80 kilometers from the Gaza Strip. The young woman therefore has German citizenship.

According to “Spiegel”, Ricarda Louk called her daughter when the first Hamas rockets flew. The young woman wanted to look for shelter. After that, the family didn’t hear from her again. Her credit card was later allegedly used in Gaza.

According to the report, the family made their daughter’s German citizenship public because they hoped for help from the German authorities. Because Shani Louk is just one case among many in Israel.

The missing woman had attended a festival near the Israeli Kibbutz Rem, only about ten kilometers from the border with the Gaza Strip. Videos show people celebrating exuberantly and how Hamas fighters invaded the site on Saturday morning. Eyewitnesses report how the terrorists fired rockets and machine guns into the fleeing crowd around 7:15 a.m. on Saturday morning and hundreds of people fled in panic. The young woman’s video is circulating on social media. She lies half-naked and on her stomach in the back of a truck, her legs and head twisted. Four armed Palestinians drive her through the crowd, repeatedly shouting loudly: “Allahu akbar! God is great!” She has striking tattoos on her legs and long dark dreadlocks, which is how her relatives recognized her.

According to Channel 12, volunteers from a local organization compiled a list of festival attendees. Dozens of people are still reported missing. The exact number of victims is still unknown. According to the open source intelligence service OSINT Defender, over 250 dead were discovered at the site. Many of them are foreign citizens, including people from Norway, the USA, Canada and Germany.

Young German tourist among the dead?

Within just a few hours, the number of terror victims in Israel increased from 300 to 700, a spokesman for the aid organization “Zaka” told Israeli media. One of the dead is said to be a 22-year-old German tourist: Carolin Bohl, a student from Berlin. Her mother confirms this to the “Welt”. She traveled through Israel with a British-Israeli friend. Her return flight would have left on Saturday. They were visiting Kibbutz Nir Oz when rockets hit.

Another German citizen is said to have been kidnapped in the same kibbutz with her daughters, aged three and five, and her mother-in-law, who also has a German passport. Family father Yoni Asher addressed the public in a Facebook post. “I immediately recognized it was her, without a doubt,” Asher told Channel 12 News. His German wife Doron Katz-Asher and their children were visiting their grandmother in Kibbutz Nir Oz near the Gaza Strip when armed attackers appeared. Since then, Asher has had no contact with his family.

Berlin youth group sat in the bunker in Ashkelon

In the city of Ashkelon, a good ten kilometers north of the Gaza Strip, a youth group from Berlin also found itself in danger. The city on the Mediterranean has come under heavy fire from Hamas, says Alexander Jahns, who is in contact with those affected. Jahns is chairman of the Pankow-Ashkelon Friends’ Circle, which supported the trip. It was organized by a youth sports club. The group had to stay in a hotel bunker for hours and was taken to Tel Aviv the next day, the organizer said. The trip, which was actually supposed to end this Sunday, took place as part of an exchange program. The Berlin district of Pankow has had a twin town relationship with Ashkelon since 1994. The eleven girls and boys between the ages of 15 and 17 have been in Israel since the beginning of the month. There had previously been a visit from Israeli young people who showed them Berlin and celebrated Shabbat together.

Federal Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock (Greens) “urgently” asked all local German citizens to sign up for the crisis preparedness list. Anyone who is already registered in the ELEFAND register of Germans abroad is encouraged by the Foreign Office to keep their registrations up to date.