Col. Seraiah Ofer’s killers planned murder, Shin Bet says
The two men revealed during interrogation that they had come with the express intent of killing Ofer
The alleged killers of Col. Seraiah Ofer revealed during interrogation that they had initially planned to commit a robbery in the isolated Jewish settlement but, after discovering in advance that a senior officer lived there – one who was likely to own a weapon — the men allegedly planned and carried out a premeditated murder, the Shin Bet security service said Thursday.
Ever since the October 11 murder, committed over 100 kilometers (60 miles) from the suspects’ homes, there has been speculation about the motive for the killing, with some suggesting the motive was nationalistic, and others indicating that the bludgeoning could have been the result of a robbery gone bad.
The two accused killers, Oudeh Fareed Taleb Harub, 18, and Bashir Ahmed Oudeh Harub, 21, left their hometown of Dir Tsamet, near Hebron, in late September and scouted out the deserted vacation village where Ofer and his wife lived.
Ofer’s wife, Monique, who managed to crawl to safety and flag down a ride late that Thursday night, told the police that she and her husband had heard their dog barking and the sounds of human movement outside the door and that as soon as her husband stepped outside he was assaulted with axes and crowbars.
Ofer’s murder came amid a sharp rise in Palestinian attacks against IDF troops. Over the past six weeks, Sgt. Tomer Hazan was lured by a Palestinian acquaintance to a West Bank village, where he was killed and thrown into a well; Sgt. Gal Kobi was shot in the neck during active service in Hebron; Eden Atias was stabbed Wednesday while sleeping on a bus in Afula; and Ofer, a former brigade commander and one of the founders of the Shaldag special forces unit, was killed in his home in Brosh Habikaa.
“Once they understood that he was a senior army officer, who probably owned a weapon, they decided to kill him, as they said, ‘as a present to the Palestinian people and the prisoners of Hamas in honor of the Festival of the Sacrifice,'” a Shin Bet spokesperson wrote in a statement.
The two men arrived at the scene of the crime on October 10 in the evening and waited for Ofer and his wife to return home. The men were armed with an ax and a gardening hoe. Shortly after one in the morning, they allegedly bludgeoned Ofer to death.
Realizing that Monique Mor Ofer had managed to flee, the two men considered making a run for the nearby Jordan border, the Shin Bet said, but “thought the better of it” and instead called Abed Rabeh Shuamrah, 27, from a-Ram, a town outside Jerusalem.
In the car, the men told Shuamrah about the murder and the driver, who confessed to his role while under questioning, took them to his house and gave them a change of clothes.
In the coming days, the Shin Bet said, it will hand the file over to the military prosecutor’s office in the West Bank and the three will be indicted.