A German prosecutor's office has opened an investigation into Hamas attacks in Israel on suspicion of murder and kidnapping of German citizens, the federal prosecutor's office said Tuesday. On Tuesday, the mother of a German-Israeli woman who disappeared in Israel, Shani Louk, said she had received news that the 22-year-old was alive in the Gaza Strip.
To discover
- LIVE - Follow Hamas' attack on Israel
She is said to be suffering from "a serious head injury" and is "in a critical situation," Louk said in a video posted on the German public broadcaster's Tagesschau news site. Shani Louk's case was in the media over the weekend when her mother, who is of German origin, said she had identified her daughter in a brutal video circulating on social media.
"Every minute counts"
It showed an unconscious, half-naked young woman lying face down in the back of a pick-up truck, being brutalized by armed men. Shani Louk had attended the techno party in southern Israel, near the Gaza border, where Hamas commandos killed about 250 people. Ms. Louk reiterated her appeal to the German authorities to come to her daughter's aid quickly. "Every minute counts," she said Tuesday.
LIVE - Hamas attack on Israel: eight Frenchmen killed, 20 missing, according to new toll
The Palestinian Islamist movement has kidnapped some 150 people on Israeli territory. Several German nationals, who also have Israeli citizenship, are among those held by Hamas. The German authorities, who never comment on the cases of private individuals, have not communicated at this stage on the cases of killed German citizens.