Israeli family forced to relive Hamas trauma as photo of murdered daughter wins award

Winning picture shows four triumphant-looking terrorist militants sitting atop Shani Louk’s lifeless body in pickup truck

An award given to a photo of Shani Louk’s dead body in the back of a Hamas truck has forced her family to “relive the pain” of her murder and abduction on Oct 7, her mother has told The Telegraph.
Ricarda Louk, 53, said that pictures of her Israeli-German daughter, 22, were “traumatic for all of us. Just try to imagine seeing your loved girl lying half-naked and lifeless on the truck with those savages around her.”
That trauma was raked up all over again, she said, when one of the photos was among those awarded “Team Picture Story of the Year” by the Missouri School of Journalism’s Reynolds Journalism Institute last month.
The picture, which was taken by freelance photographer Ali Mahmud and published by Associated Press, shows four triumphant-looking Hamas militants brandishing a rocket launcher and guns as they sit on top of Shani Louk’s body, lying face-down in the back of a pickup truck.
In the picture, she was still wearing the clubbing outfit she had on when she attended the Nova music festival. Blood and dirt can be seen on her skin.
Separate footage posted online later in the day showed her body being paraded around the streets of Gaza, with some spitting on her.
“Seeing those pictures again because of the contest makes our family relive the pain,” said Ms Louk.
She also highlighted the fact that the image can still be bought by news outlets, effectively generating profit from her daughter’s death.
“That’s really unimaginable, every day goes by they still earn money on those pictures… They’re still selling them and they’re still making lots of money from them,” she said.
Ms Louk said the family was not told in advance that the photo was up for an award, adding it “made me angry”.
“The fact they celebrated this photo with a prize makes us hurt even more because really, it’s like celebrating that they were killed. I mean, the whole massacre is celebrated. It’s not by chance that they chose this picture so it hurts us even more.”
The Reynolds Journalism Institute has said it “strongly” condemned the Oct 7 attack by Hamas but that it stood by its award.
“Reactions to the Team Picture Story of the Year express the greater emotions related to that conflict,” said Lynden Steele, the director of photojournalism at the institute. 
“While we understand the reactions to the pictures, we also believe that photojournalism plays an important role in bringing attention to the harsh realities of war.”
The Telegraph has contacted the Associated Press (AP) for comment.
The wire agency is currently being sued by the US-based National Jewish Advocacy Centre for allegedly being so quick to photograph events on Oct 7 because they or their journalists had advance knowledge of the attack.
In a statement in February, AP said the lawsuit was “baseless”.
“AP had no advance knowledge of the Oct. 7 attacks, nor have we seen any evidence – including in the lawsuit – that the freelance journalists who contributed to our coverage did. Allegations like this are reckless and create even more potential danger for journalists in the region.”
Ms Louk is not the only person to condemn the picture being given an award.
There was outcry on social media when the picture was posted on Instagram by the Institute. That post has since been deleted.
Simon Sebag Montefiore, the British historian and author wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter: “It is hard to know who is more repellent – @‌AP for using the product of a ghoul who rode with terrorists and rapists as they slaughtered women and children and then stopped to pose and snap this vision of heartless, diabolic triumph… or the Missouri School of Journalism that is rewarding that repulsive conduct,” 
A petition demanding Nikon to denounce the award given to the Associated Press for Picture of the Year has raised nearly 150,000 signatures.
Ms Louk says she is trying to move on from the horrors of her daughter’s murder, while still waiting for her body to be returned by Hamas.
“We did the Shiva which is like the seven days of mourning with lots of people, but we didn’t do a burial yet,” she said. “We are giving it a year for her body to come back and if it doesn’t in a year, we will do a burial.”