Palestinian who raped and killed Israeli in ‘act of terror’ gets life sentence
- Arafat Irfaiya was sentenced to life for murder plus an additional 20 years for rape judges described as ‘ brutal, inhuman and cruel’
- The court determined that the attack on the 19-year-old Jewish woman in a forest near a youth centre was politically motivated
An Israeli court on Sunday sentenced a Palestinian man to life in prison plus an additional 20 years for raping and murdering a 19-year-old Jewish woman, a crime judges concluded was politically motivated.
Arafat Irfaiya, a resident of Hebron in the occupied West Bank, was sentenced by the Jerusalem District Court over the killing of Ori Ansbacher in February 2019.
The panel of three judges determined that her murder was “also an act of terror”.
Irfaiya, in his early 30s, was given a life sentence for the killing and an additional 20 years for rape.
The attack took place in a Jerusalem forest near the youth centre where Ansbacher had been working as part of her national service.
After illegally crossing into Israel, “the defendant saw Ori sitting on a rock, and decided to kill her just because she was Jewish”, the sentencing read. The judges described Irfaiya’s behaviour and lack of remorse as “brutal, inhuman and cruel”.