Palestinian suspect in murder, rape of teen ordered held for 5 more days

The Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court on Wednesday extended by five days the remand of a Palestinian man suspected of brutally murdering Israeli teen Ori Ansbacher earlier this month in a forested area of Jerusalem.

Arafat Irfaiya, a 29-year-old Hebron resident, was arrested on February 8 in the West Bank city of Ramallah.

Authorities say they are seeking to prosecute Irfaiya for murder in the context of a terrorist act, in addition to a charge of rape, but have yet to formally file charges.

It was Irfaiya’s third remand after the court last week ordered him detained for eight days. At the time police said they needed more time to complete the investigation, especially to examine forensic evidence.

Earlier this month the Shin Bet announced that the murder was a nationalistically motivated terror attack, saying Irfaiya reenacted the murder of Ansbacher, 19, in front of interrogators and “implicated himself definitively in the incident.”

The suspect reportedly told interrogators that he entered Israel and looked for a Jewish victim because he wanted to be a martyr.

“I entered Israel with a knife because I wanted to become a martyr and murder a Jew,” he reportedly said. “I met the girl by chance.”

Irfaiya said that after he crossed the Green Line he sprinted to avoid detection by security cameras.

A spokesman for the Shin Bet previously said Irfaiya had spent time in prison for security-related offenses and that he had crossed into Israel without a permit before carrying out the murder. Hebrew media reported that the suspect is affiliated with Hamas, though neither the terror group nor others have claimed responsibility for the attack due to the rape charge.

Channel 13 news has reported that Irfaiya was arrested in 2017 at the entrance to the Temple Mount holy site in Jerusalem armed with a large kitchen knife, and had indicated that if released, he would “come back here with a knife.”

Additional details regarding the probe remain under gag order.

The case has sparked outrage across the country and prompted the government to approve implementing a law under which Israel would deduct from tax revenues it collects on behalf of Palestinians the amount that the Palestinian Authority pays out to Palestinian attackers and their families.

The security cabinet approved withholding NIS 502,697,000 ($138 million) from a year’s worth of taxes that Israel collects on goods arriving at Israeli ports. In response, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas declared he would refuse to accept all tax revenues from Israel, estimated to be around NIS 803,282,580 ($222 million), a measure which could lead to the collapse of the PA which administers the Palestinian territories.

Agencies contributed to this report.