Palestinian Terrorist Who Murdered Young Israeli Sentenced to Life in Prison
Ori Ansbacher. Photo: Courtesy.
i24 News – Palestinian terrorist Arafat Irfaiya, who raped and murdered Israeli teen Ori Ansbacher in 2019, was sentenced to life imprisonment with an additional 20 years in prison.
The sentence was announced in the Jerusalem District Court on Sunday, nearly four years after the murder. The verdict had been delayed on several occasions due to the psychiatric evaluation of the terrorist, which had finally determined that he was fit to be tried.
Arfaiah had previously been convicted of murder and sexual offenses. During the sentencing, the judge underlined the cruelty of the acts committed by the terrorist who entered Israel illegally, specifying that he had decided to kill Ansbacher because she was Jewish.
“Ori’s life ended with a scream. She suffered inhumane brutality,” the judge said.
The Palestinian had confessed to his actions during a hearing to determine his sentence in 2020.
According to the indictment, Ansbacher, 19, who was doing her national service at the “Yael” center for at-risk children and youth in the Ein Yael area of Jerusalem, was in the forest near where she was working when she was attacked by Arfaiah from Hebron. The terrorist was armed with a knife.
The young girl struggled for a long time, screaming before being stabbed several times by the Palestinian. He then covered her mouth with the scarf she wore around her neck, tied her hands with a belt, and then raped her. Before fleeing, he had taken care to remove the memory card from the girl’s phone and throw it under a rock.
According to the details of the investigation, the terrorist had a yarmulke in his pocket which he had bought two weeks before so that he could enter Israel without being apprehended. “I had decided to kill a Jew because of the occupation and because of the treatment of Arabs at checkpoints in Jerusalem,” Arafat Arfaiah told investigators.