Palestinian suspected of murdering his pregnant Israeli lover

A Palestinian man has confessed to killing his pregnant Israeli lover, 29-year-old Michal Halimi, who has been missing for over two months, police said on Wednesday.

In a statement, police said that Muhammad Harouf’s confession came after an investigation into the disappearance. His suspected motive wasn’t immediately clear.

Halimi, a resident of the West Bank settlement of Adam, was first reported missing in May.

Police said that after looking into her disappearance, they determined that Halimi had left her home of her own volition in order to move in with Harouf in the northern West Bank city of Nablus.

In a Facebook post, the two had announced their intention to become engaged, police said.

After learning of Harouf’s relationship with Halimi and that the two had been together in the Tel Aviv suburb of Holon on the day of her disappearance, police detained Halouf.

When Halouf gave a number of conflicting accounts of Halimi’s whereabouts, police expanded their investigation and arrested a number of suspects whom Harouf was in contact with.

They found her body in Holon’s Sand Dunes Park on July 24.

Harouf then confessed to murdering Halimi and was brought to Holon to reenact the murder. He told police he had choked her and thrown rocks at her head before burying her body.

At the time of her murder, Halimi was eight months pregnant. She was also reportedly married to an Israeli man when she was murdered, and it was not immediately clear who the baby’s father was.

Speaking to reporters Wednesday at the Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court, where his remand was extended for five days, Harouf denied killing Halimi for romantic reasons, saying, “I wanted to free prisoners.”

While leaving the courtroom, Harouf also kicked a prison guard and yelled, “I’ll kill all the Jews.”

Harouf is expected to be indicted at the Tel Aviv District Court for murder and other charges in the coming days.

In a video published hours after Michal’s name was released for publication, her widower, Aaron, denied the police’s statements regarding the existence of a liaison between Harouf and his late wife.

He said that his family would be filing a lawsuit against the Israel Police after the burial and seven-day mourning period and that “the truth and justice will come out.”