A Palestinian man confessed to raping and murdering 19-year-old Israeli woman Ori Ansbacher on Feb. 7.
The man, identified as 29-year-old Arafat Irfaiya, was arrested on Feb. 8; on Feb. 10, the Shin Bet security service announced that Irfaiya confessed to the crime, even going as far as re-enacting it.
“I entered Israel with a knife because I wanted to become a martyr and murder a Jew,” Irfaiya told interrogators. “I met the girl by chance.”
The Shin Bet says that Irfaiya murdering Ansbacher was “nationalistically motivated.”
According to Haaretz, Palestinian terror groups have avoided taking credit for Irfaiya’s actions since he raped Ansbacher before murdering her.
“If an Arab girl had been there, he would have done the same thing,” a senior Fatah official told Haaretz. “There is nothing nationalist in his acts.”
Fatah, the faction of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, claimed on Facebook that Israeli interrogators had “beaten and tortured” Irfaiya.
Ansbacher was buried on Feb. 8.
