Gaza man, 44, indicted for brutal murder of Galilee teenager

Prosecutors filed a murder indictment Monday against a Gazan man over the shocking killing of 17-year-old Adel Khatib two months ago in the northern city of Shfaram.

The indictment alleges that Wisam Abu al-Hasana, 44, kidnapped and murdered the teenager in early December, then buried his body in a pit outside a school in Shfaram’s Ein Afiya neighborhood.

The boy’s disappearance first became known on December 4, when his parents notified police he had not returned home from school. The call sparked a massive search, with police and rescue services deploying dogs, officers on horseback, helicopters, trackers and volunteers to roam the countryside, according to Channel 12 television news.

On December 5, the search parties found a site behind the school that appeared to have been dug up recently. Officers dug into the soil and discovered Khatib’s body, which bore signs of violence.

After initially suspecting a group of the boy’s friends, looking into a failed romantic entanglement, and then investigating a neighboring family that had long feuded with Khatib’s family, investigators quickly concluded none of those suspects could have been the culprits. The investigation then turned to a careful combing of security camera footage from various locations and businesses throughout the town.

It was then that officers discovered footage of al-Hasana, a Gazan who was living in Shfaram illegally under the assumed name Wisam Sakaran, leading Khatib on the day of his murder to the area where his body would later be found, the indictment said. Other footage showed al-Hasana carrying a hoe that day.

A friend of the family also found a ransom note on a car near the Khatibs’ home demanding 400,000 shekels ($116,000) for information that would lead to his safe return.

Police then launched a manhunt for al-Hasana, who had disappeared. He was found in early January hiding in a construction site in the neighboring town of Tamra.

In his questioning, al-Hasana initially denied the killing, but then confessed after being shown the footage. He then reenacted the crime for investigators.

He told investigators he had lured the boy to the site of the killing by telling him he had a gift for him. The two were acquaintances who briefly worked together at a construction site. Al-Hasana had also once worked for Khatib’s uncle.

When the boy arrived at the site, al-Hasana, realizing (according to his testimony) he would not be able to keep the boy hidden after the kidnapping, attacked him from behind, stabbing him multiple times.

Only after the killing did al-Hasana place the ransom note on a car in the boy’s neighborhood. In an apparent bid to buy himself time, al-Hasana’s note warned that any call to police would result in harm to the youth.

The following morning, al-Hasana left the town and went into hiding in Tamra, where he was eventually located by police a month later.

Al-Hasana entered Israel on a humanitarian permit in 2010, then was returned to Gaza. He was allowed into Israel again in 2015 to receive medical care at an Israeli hospital, but he left the hospital and has lived in Shfaram ever since.

In his questioning last month, he told police he had meant to send the ransom money to his family in Gaza.

Khatib’s killing shocked residents in the town, whose population is a mix of Sunni Muslims, Druze and Christians. Hundreds visited the Khatibs’ home in the wake of the murder to pay their condolences.

“My heart is torn,” Khatib’s father Ashraf told the Ynet news site the day the boy’s body was located. “We still haven’t digested that we’ve lost him. We’d hug him [each day] when he returned home. This time he left and didn’t return.”