Police are maintaining a media
blackout on the investigation on the stabbing of two women, one fatally, near Beit
Shemesh on Saturday, though they said they believe the attack was
nationalistically motivated and not a random act of violence.
RELATED:Police: Stabbing was probably a terror attackUS woman's body found in Jerusalem-Beit Shemesh areaJerusalem
Police spokesman Shmuel Ben-Ruby told
The Jerusalem Post on Wednesday night that
no terrorist groups had taken responsibility for the attack.
The stabbing
killed American Kristine Luken and seriously wounded her friend, Givat Ze’ev
resident Kay Wilson.
The two women were hiking with Wilson’s dog on
Saturday near Mata when they were attacked by two Arab men, Wilson told
police.
They stabbed both women, but Wilson pretended to be dead until
the attackers left the scene.
Wilson then made her way to the road,
bleeding heavily and with her hands tied, and attracted the attention of two
families who called for medical attention. On Sunday, she told reporters from her hospital bed how one of the attackers
took off her Star of David necklace and stabbed her where the pendant had
lain.
Luken will be buried in the United States later this week.
A
memorial service will be held at Christ Church in Jerusalem’s Old City on
Thursday, and the church plans to create a memorial in Luken’s name.
“She
had an infectious love for God and a great admiration and love for the Jewish
people and the Holy Land,” the church said in a statement.
Both Luken and
Wilson were involved with CMJ, the Church’s Ministry Among Jewish People, which
promotes Messianic Judaism.
The two met on a CMJ-sponsored tour of Poland
and Israel that explored the Holocaust and modern-day Israel.
Wilson is
the main educator for Shoresh Tours, a branch of CMJ that runs tours in Israel
and Eastern Europe.
A representative of Luken’s family declined to say
where she will be buried. Luken lived for many years in Virginia while working
for the US Department of Education before moving to Nottingham, England, to work
for CMJ.
“She had a beautiful and gentle spirit as well as a strong and
vibrant faith,” Robin Aldridge, chief executive officer of CMJ UK, said in a
statement.
Luken had worked as CMJ’s UK administrator since
2009.
CMJ UK will hold a memorial service for her in Southwell, north of
Nottingham, on January 12.