Shani Louk

After the rocket fire began, Shani's mother called her at about 6:40 a.m. Shani said she was getting into the car with Orión and driving somewhere safe. (1)(2)

Shani, Orión and their friend Keshet Casarotti-Kalfa escaped north. They reached the Mefalsim area, about 15 kilometers from Nova, where their car appears to have been involved in a collision amid damaged vehicles. (3)(4)

According to Shani's mother, shortly before 7 a.m. Keshet called Israel's national emergency medical service for an ambulance and reported that Shani was injured but conscious. A few minutes later, he called again and asked why help had not arrived. (4)

Israeli authorities later concluded that Hamas terrorists killed Shani near Mefalsim while she was escaping the festival and took her body into Gaza. (5)(3)

Footage recorded in Gaza showed Shani lying face down in the back of a pickup truck, surrounded by armed men as the vehicle moved through a crowd. Amnesty International later independently verified the footage. (3)

The family believed Shani might still be alive. They saw attempts to use her credit card in Gaza and later received information that she was critically injured in a Gaza hospital. The hospital report was never independently confirmed. (2)(7)

For more than three weeks, her family publicly sought her release as an injured hostage.

On October 30, they learned that a fragment from the base of Shani's skull had been found in Israel and identified through DNA. Doctors said the injury was incompatible with survival. Later evidence established that Shani had been killed on October 7 before her body was taken into Gaza. (6)(3)

Shani's body remained in Gaza for more than seven months. On May 17, 2024, the Israeli military announced that it had recovered her body, together with those of Amit Buskila and Itzhak Gelerenter, from an underground complex in Jabalia. (5)(8)

Before accepting the identification, Shani's father asked to see photographs. He said he could still see the tattoos on her hands. The same tattoos had helped the family recognize her in the Gaza footage on October 7. (9)(6)

One week after Shani's body was recovered, Israeli forces recovered Orión's body from Gaza. Israeli authorities said he too had been killed on October 7 after escaping Nova. (10)