Man charged with murdering 7-year-old, attempting to kill a 2nd child in Beit Shemesh

Prosecutors charged a man Monday with murder over the killing of a young boy in Beit Shemesh last month and the attempted murder of the child’s cousin.

Liel Ifergan, 26, was accused at Jerusalem District Court of stabbing to death 7-year-old Hillel Mordechai Dadon and injuring his 4-year-old cousin, while their parents were out of the house

“It is difficult to grasp the gap between an innocent game played by two children in a pool, and the defendant’s decision to arm himself with a knife and take their lives,” prosecutors said in a statement.

Prosecutors requested that Ifergan be detained until the end of legal proceedings. The court ordered that he undergo a psychological assessment that will be submitted within ten days.

According to prosecutors, on August 17 the children were playing in an inflatable pool in their grandmother’s yard when Ifergan rushed in from a nearby apartment carrying a knife and stabbed Hillel Mordechai in the chest and his cousin in the neck.

He then fled the scene and cleaned the blood off the knife, prosecutors say.

In a statement to the media, Hillel’s father Amos said: “We hope that justice will soon be served.”

He said that the incident had “harmed a lot of people” in the wider family, and “is something incomprehensible.”

Amos said that, along with Hillel’s mother Tamar, they are trying to “be strong, because we have other children.”

Tamar lamented that she was “close to collapsing” under the emotional burden of the day’s events.

She rejected the notion that the defendant’s psychological condition could be a mitigating factor in the case.

“It doesn’t make any sense that in the end a psychological problem can exempt a person from serious punishment,” she said.

Ifergan was reportedly hospitalized at the Eitanim psychiatric hospital several years ago, and he was scheduled for a check-up with his psychiatrist in December. Police said at the time of the murder that the suspect had not been previously known to them.

Channel 12 reported that an initial investigation found that Ifergan first arrived at the apartment hours before the attack, left, and then returned with a sharp implement, before leaving again. He also apparently spoke with the apartment owner but left. Hours later, he returned with the knife and attacked the children, the report said.

Last month Kan reported that Ifergan was under the influence of drugs when he carried out the deadly stabbing. The report did not specify what drugs he took.