Murder of Dvir Sorek

Dvir Sorek lived in Ofra and studied at the Machanayim religious seminary in Migdal Oz, participating in a hesder program combining Torah study with military service.[4][3] At the time of the attack, he had not yet completed the yeshiva stage of the program and was neither armed nor wearing a uniform.[3]

Sorek enjoyed reading, music, cooking, and gardening; his family ate tomatoes from his vegetable garden on the last Shabbat before his death.[4] During the preceding year, he had participated in a dialogue-and-study group bringing together young Israelis and Palestinians from the Bethlehem and Etzion areas.[4] His family later learned that, when he was about 14, he had encouraged a friend who had experienced trauma to tell his parents and seek help; the friend eventually received treatment and recovered.[4]

His grandfather, Rabbi Binyamin Herling, was a Holocaust survivor killed in an attack near Nablus in October 2000.[5] Herling had been among a group of Israeli hikers fired upon near Mount Ebal, in an attack that also wounded four other Israelis.[5]

On his final trip to Jerusalem, Sorek bought books as end-of-year gifts for his teachers.[1][6] He returned by bus and began walking alone toward his yeshiva in Migdal Oz.[3]

The later military-court account placed the attack on August 7, 2019, near the entrance to Migdal Oz.[1] An early investigation placed it at about 8:30 p.m., after Sorek got off a bus near the southern entrance to Efrat and walked roughly 150–200 meters uphill toward Migdal Oz.[3]

Qassem Asafra and his cousin Nasir blocked Sorek’s path with their vehicle.[1] Nasir got out, struck him with an electric shock device, and stabbed him several times in the upper body before the two fled.[1] The initial investigation described an attack lasting seconds, without a struggle, followed by the attackers’ escape by car.[3]

In interrogation transcripts published later, Qassem said that he and Nasir had discussed attacking a settler and agreed to kidnap a victim if possible and otherwise kill him.[1] Qassem described himself as the driver and Nasir as the knife attacker, saying that the stabbing followed the failure of a stun gun.[1] The attackers cited “the suffering of the Palestinian people” and “the situation at Al-Aqsa” as reasons for their actions.[7]

When Sorek did not arrive, his friends began searching, and his family and school reported him missing after losing contact with him.[3] The first missing-person report reached police and security forces around midnight.[3] Trackers found his body beside the road in the early hours of August 8, with the books he had bought for his teachers.[3][6]

The discovery prompted an investigation and a search for the attackers.[3] Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited the scene and said he had no doubt the perpetrators would be arrested, adding that Israel would “settle accounts with them and with those who sent them.”[8]

About 48 hours after the killing, Yamam officers raided Beit Kahil, approximately 10 kilometers south of the attack scene, and arrested Qassem and Nasir Asafra.[1] The two confessed several hours later.[1] An account of the arrests dated them to August 10.[8]

In October 2019, military prosecutors indicted five Palestinian men in connection with the murder: Qassem Asafra, Nasir Asafra, Ahmad Asafra, Yusuf Zohor, and Mahmoud Atuna.[9] The indictment charged them with intentionally causing death—the regional equivalent of murder—and other serious offenses.[9] It described the cell as affiliated with Hamas, and the military prosecution sought to keep the defendants in custody throughout the proceedings.[9]

The later court account established that Qassem had recruited Nasir into a Hamas-affiliated cell intended to attack Israeli targets and that the cousins planned a stabbing attack and the murder of an Israeli.[1] They were convicted of intentionally causing death, attempted intentional killing, and additional security offenses.[1] The court account also described an attempted attack on June 29, 2019, when the two were caught while traveling toward their intended location.[1]

The Judea Military Court sentenced Qassem to life imprisonment plus 40 years and Nasir to life imprisonment plus 20 years.[1] Each was ordered to pay Sorek’s family 1.5 million shekels.[1] Qassem was also convicted of attempted intentional killing for a 2011 stabbing in Beersheba that wounded two Israelis, an attack solved during the investigation into Sorek’s murder.[1] He was ordered to pay those victims an additional 60,000 shekels.[1]

A military court later convicted Ahmad Asafra, described as the cell leader, of intentionally causing Sorek’s death and other attempted-death and security offenses.[7] The court accepted the prosecution’s position that he bore responsibility despite not being present at the killing.[7] Yusuf Zohor, who likewise had not been present, was reported in a later account as convicted of murder and other security crimes and sentenced to life imprisonment plus 15 years.[7][10]

In May 2022, the Judea Military Court sentenced Ahmad Asafra to life imprisonment plus 25 years and ordered him to pay Sorek’s family 1.5 million shekels.[11] In November that year, the court convicted Mahmoud Atuna of murder, two attempted-murder charges, and other security offenses, although he had not physically participated in the killing.[10] The court cited his central role in planning and executing the operation and in recruiting one of the two killers.[10]

Separately from the criminal proceedings, the military demolished the Beit Kahil homes of Qassem Asafra, Nasir Asafra, Ahmad Asafra, and Yusuf Zohor in November 2019, after the High Court of Justice rejected their families’ appeals.[12] Palestinians threw stones and burned tires during the operation.[12]

Published accounts differ over the date assigned to the attack. Later court reporting dated it to August 7, while other later coverage described it as an August 8 stabbing.[1][10] Early reporting placed the attack at about 8:30 p.m. and the discovery of Sorek’s body at about 2:30 a.m. the following morning, establishing that the killing and discovery occurred on opposite sides of midnight.[3]

Accounts also evolved concerning abduction. An early investigation ruled out an actual attempted abduction during the attack, while later interrogation transcripts said the attackers had discussed kidnapping a victim if possible and killing him otherwise.[3][1]

In May 2020, the High Court of Justice ruled 2–1 against demolishing the family home of Mahmoud Atuna, then accused of involvement in the killing.[13] The majority emphasized that his wife and children had neither known of nor supported his actions and concluded that the time elapsed since the attack weakened the proposed demolition’s deterrent effect.[13] The dissenting judge disagreed that the delay made the demolition unreasonable.[13]

The ruling concerned a contested punitive policy rather than a criminal sentence: the military defended home demolitions as a deterrent, while human-rights activists and some defense officials criticized the practice.[13]

Sorek’s funeral was held at the civilian cemetery in Ofra.[3] His father, Yoav, recalled that the family had expected to celebrate Dvir’s 19th birthday within days and described him as bringing light and goodness to those around him.[3] In his eulogy, he recalled a karate teacher’s observation that Dvir performed the movements well but lacked “murder in his eyes,” contrasting that description with the “light in his eyes.”[3] He also remembered his son’s willingness to help people who needed a friend.[3]

The family agreed to donate Sorek’s organs, and an announcement said his corneas would be transplanted.[3] His father explained: “If we could have asked Dvir, this would have been his wish.”[3]

Palestinian members of Sorek’s Israeli-Palestinian dialogue group sent his family a condolence letter condemning the killing and expressing the hope that it would be “the last mourning of both sides.”[4]

In June 2020, students from Ohr Torah Stone schools dedicated an outdoor rest area in his memory at the attack site.[6] They cleaned the wooded area, created a pathway, installed benches and picnic tables, and made an entrance mosaic.[6] Rabbi Shlomo Vilk, the head of Sorek’s yeshiva, recalled that he had “stood out” from his arrival and that his behavior brought a sense of life to those around him.[6]