The father of murdered teen Shani Louk has spoken out about the infamous photograph of his daughter’s body that has come to symbolize the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas.

Shani, a 22-year-old German-Israeli tattoo artist, was murdered by Hamas along with 323 others at the Supernova music festival on October 7. One of the first viral images from that day was an Associated Press video and photo of Shani’s semi-naked body being paraded through the streets of Gaza on the back of a pickup truck. In March, the sickening image notoriously won the AP POY photojournalism competition’s Team Picture Story of the Year category.

In an interview with the New York Post ahead of Israel’s 76th Independence Day, Nissim Louk described the image of his dead daughter as a representation of the “darkness” Israel faces in its war against Hamas.

“This picture is very important because this picture shows from one side, Shani — beautiful, amazing, bright light to the world, and from the other side you see these terrorists in the pickup with machine guns that bring trouble and pain to the world and nobody can mix these two pictures,” Nissim said.

“You see that Shani is the light and that Shani is part of the Jewish people. We are the light. The other part is darkness. They bring pain to the world and suffering and that’s what happened to her.”