Murder of Ori Ansbacher

Ori Ansbacher was 19 years old and lived in Tekoa.[1] She was in her second year of national service at the Yaelim Center in Jerusalem's Ein Yael area, where she worked with children and teenagers, including youth at risk and young people with disabilities.[2] Accounts from the center and her national-service organization described her as a valued volunteer who formed close relationships with the young people she accompanied.[2]

In the days immediately before her death, Ansbacher had returned from a demanding two-day group trip to the Judean Desert.[3] On the morning of February 7, 2019, she told her manager at the Yaelim Center that she needed time alone and left the work area to walk in the surrounding natural space.[3] The Jerusalem District Court later described her as having gone to the Ein Yael forest to listen to music and write after volunteering with at-risk youth.[4]

After Ansbacher failed to return to the Yaelim Center, her friend tried calling her and alerted her mother.[3] Reports differed on the timing: one account said relatives reported her missing at about 11:00 a.m., while another said Jerusalem police were notified at 3:15 p.m.[2][3] That evening, at 7:12 p.m., a coordinator from the Yaelim Center found Ansbacher's body at Ein Yael, near Jerusalem's Biblical Zoo.[3] Police searched the scene overnight using forensic, canine, and mounted units and kept the discovery site undisturbed until a forensic physician arrived to collect a biological sample for DNA profiling.[2][5]

According to an account of Irfaiya's interrogation, he had left Hebron that morning carrying a knife, purchased a kippa two weeks earlier so he could enter Israel without attracting suspicion, and traveled toward Beit Jala before walking into the forest.[6][7] He later told investigators that he encountered Ansbacher sitting on a boulder and writing in a journal.[8] The indictment alleged that he identified her as Jewish and decided to kill her.[9][6] In accounts attributed to his statements and the indictment, he stabbed her repeatedly as she resisted; she died from multiple stab wounds.[9][6]

Shortly after 8:00 a.m. on February 8, the police DNA laboratory received the biological profile from the crime scene, compared it with the police database, and found a match to Arafat Irfaiya.[5] Laboratory staff repeatedly verified the match before confirming it—a result a former police forensic identification chief described as unusually rapid, saying that obtaining a suspect match within hours almost never happens.[5][10] Israeli security forces arrested Irfaiya about 36 hours after the killing inside the Jamal Abdel Nasser Mosque in al-Bireh, near Ramallah.[8][11] An IDF service dog located him after troops had searched the premises twice and reviewed neighborhood CCTV footage; the Yamam counter-terrorism unit carried out the arrest.[11] Forces were attacked with Molotov cocktails, pipe bombs, stones, and burning tires while removing him from the site.[11]

Following Irfaiya's arrest, the Shin Bet announced on February 10, 2019, that he had admitted to attacking and killing Ansbacher, had reenacted the crime for investigators, and had stated that he acted for nationalist reasons.[7]

In March 2019, Irfaiya was indicted in Jerusalem District Court on charges including committing a terrorist act in the form of premeditated murder, rape, and entering Israel without a permit.[6] Prosecutors cited DNA from the crime scene, a knife bearing the victim's blood, her SIM card found in Irfaiya's bag, and her cellphone recovered from a nearby ditch.[6] Prosecutors also noted that he knew specific details about Ansbacher, including that she had headphones and a notebook.[6] The indictment alleged that Irfaiya had decided to kill a Jew and attacked Ansbacher when he identified her as Jewish, stabbing her repeatedly after she resisted.[12]

In June 2020, Irfaiya confessed in court to the attack.[8] The Jerusalem District Court convicted him of murder as an act of terror, rape, and unlawful entry into Israel.[12] The court accepted a psychiatric assessment finding him fit to stand trial, rejecting the defense's contention that he was mentally ill.[12]

On January 29, 2023, the Jerusalem District Court sentenced Irfaiya to life imprisonment for Ansbacher's murder, a cumulative 20 additional years for rape, and 10 months for illegally entering Israel.[4] The court also ordered him to pay NIS 250,000 to Ansbacher's estate and NIS 75,000 to each of her parents and siblings.[4][13] The court described the attack as particularly cruel and malicious.[4] At the sentencing hearing, Ansbacher's mother said the encounter in the forest had been "a meeting between all the light in the world and all the darkness in the world."[9]

Irfaiya's defense subsequently appealed on the grounds that he was not mentally fit to stand trial, arguing that he was mentally ill and had previously attempted suicide.[14] In March 2024, the Supreme Court rejected the appeal. Justice Yosef Elron cited assessments by multiple experts who found Irfaiya fit to stand trial, and Justices Ruth Ronen and Gila Kanfi-Steinitz joined the decision.[14] The Supreme Court's account described the killing as especially cruel and said Ansbacher had suffered greatly before her death.[14]

The attack prompted public calls in Israel for the death penalty for terrorists.[15] In January 2025, Irfaiya was listed among Palestinian prisoners slated for release in later prisoner-exchange rounds; the cited report did not establish whether he was subsequently released.[16]

As of February 12, 2019, the Shin Bet had attributed the killing to Palestinian nationalism but had not officially deemed the attack terrorism.[15] The March indictment charged Irfaiya with committing a terrorist act in the form of premeditated murder, and the Jerusalem District Court later convicted him of murder as an act of terror.[6][12]

The U.S. Department of State included Ansbacher's murder in its list of 2019 terrorist incidents and recorded the reported admission that the attack was "nationalistically motivated."[17] The Jewish Virtual Library also lists Ansbacher among victims of terrorism in Israel and describes the perpetrator as a Palestinian terrorist.[1]