The defense attorney for Arafat Irafaiya, who on February 7, 2019 raped and then murdered Ori Ansbacher, 19, from Tekoa, on Sunday morning told the Jerusalem District Court his client admitted to all the charges against him. But when Judge Rafi Carmel asked the defendant to confess his crime in court, Irafaiya ignored him and remained silent.
Ori Ansbacher volunteered at a youth center in Jerusalem and on the day of the murder she left the center in an agitated state and took a break to in the Ein Yael forest outside Jerusalem. Her relatives reported her missing around 11 AM. Police discovered her body at 5:14 PM that evening.
On February 8, security forces picked up Arafat Irafaiya in Ramallah. Irafaiya had a terrorist background and spent time in an Israeli security prison. He and his family are affiliated with the Hamas. Irafaiya admitted to the charges of raping and murdering Ansbacher, stating: “I entered Israel with a knife because I wanted to become a martyr and murder a Jew, I met the girl by chance.”
In April, 2019, the Jerusalem District Court acceded to the request of Irafaiya’s attorney and ordered that he be sent for a psychiatric evaluation to determine his capacity to stand trial. He passed the test.
Meanwhile, Israeli media published passages from the transcripts of Irafaiya’s interrogation, in which he boasted: “I made my parents proud with what I did. I did not just rape and murder some woman, but I murdered a Jewess. I did everything any Arab dreams of.”
“That murder was the best and most important thing I have ever done,” Irafaiya added. “If she had survived, it would have meant that I had failed to carry out my plan and failed my mission. It was the best feeling I had ever felt.”
“I planned to enter Jerusalem and murder Jews,” Irafaiya said. “I wanted to kill a number of Jews, not just one, but when I arrived, I saw that Allah had sent me the Jewess and I realized that I must kill her. That was the fate that Allah summoned for me.”
During the interrogation, it was discovered that Rafa’iyeh had purchased a skullcap in Jerusalem a month before the murder: “I planned to carry out an attack in Jerusalem wearing it. I planned to go somewhere wearing the skullcap so everyone think I was a Jew, and to stab as many Jews as possible in order to kill them. Had I not met the girl on the way, I would have gone into Jerusalem to carry out the attack and murder Jews.”
“After I murdered her, I stayed by the body for a while,” Irafaiya said. “I waited for more people, more Jews, to come and look for the murdered woman, then surprise them and kill them. Had I died in the attempt to kill more Jews, as far as I’m concerned it would have been a blessing, because I would have died as a martyr.”
On a Friday a few days after the murder, residents of Nokdim planted the entrance to their settlement several dozens of trees in memory of Ori Ansbacher, which on Shabbat Arab vandals uprooted and stole the saplings.
