“I Knew From A Photo”: Father of Shani Louk Recalls Realising His Daughter Was Dead After October 7

Nissim Louk, father of Shani Louk — who was abducted from the Nova music festival and later killed during the October 7 attacks — told 103FM how he first feared for his daughter’s fate on the morning of the attacks.

How He Found Out

"At around 10:00, one of Shani's friends sent me this picture and told me it could be Shani," Louk said. "I recognised the small tattoos on her leg, and I knew her vehicle had indeed crossed into Gaza and then vanished."

He described how the family later received the painful but decisive confirmation. "Two ZAKA volunteers who had stopped to pray Mincha pulled over at the side of the road and unexpectedly found hair — dreadlocks — and some blood. They carried out a DNA test and identified Shani. It was incredibly fortunate they stopped there, found it and sent it to the Institute of Forensic Medicine," he said.

"I have tried to carry her memory as a torch of light through the unbearable darkness," Louk said, as photographs released by the family accompanied public tributes.

Personal Grief and National Loss

Louk spoke about the broader national pain and the emptiness felt in hundreds of homes. "We lost 3,000 children from October 7," he said, describing how an empty chair is now present at many Sabbath tables. "The hardest thing for me is that on Friday night I make Kiddush with the family and suddenly there is an empty chair. There are 3,000 families here making Kiddush, and a child is missing from the table." He added that the sense of loss extends to families of soldiers who fell in recent weeks.

SHANI LOUK. 'I have tried to carry her memory as a torch of light through the unbearable darkness,' her father, the writer, says. (credit: Louk Family)

Confrontation With A Minister

Louk recounted a heated encounter with Transportation Minister Miri Regev at Mahane Yehuda market. He said he arrived already angry and confronted members of the minister's entourage. "Then I told them, 'They caused October 7, you caused the murder of my daughter.'" He described Regev retreating into her caravan and said members of her entourage responded angrily to him.

He also raised questions about media reports that Regev's daughter had been evacuated from the Nova festival earlier. "Miri Regev's daughter was evacuated from Nova at 4:30 in the morning," Louk said. "They evacuated her before this whole event. I don't want to ask all those questions. If that's true, then there are things here that we don't understand at all."

Call For Change

Louk sharply criticised the ruling Likud party and called for moral and political renewal. "I was very angry at Likud for becoming the Left. This Left is destroying the country. The money and the bribery — bribery blinds us, it is destroying the people of Israel from within," he said.

Closing with a reflection on his daughter’s name and its meaning, he urged national change: "My daughter's name is Shani. Shani is a very strange name. It speaks about change, something new that is supposed to happen. We owe a blood debt to 3,000 children... There must be change among the people of Israel. We need to restore integrity, restore the values we grew up with, restore love, restore justice..."

Note: All specific claims about casualties and events are presented as Louk's account and statements reported in his interview.