Home of Ori Ansbacher's murderer to be demolished by IDF

Arafat Irfaiya is suspected of the brutal rape and murder of the Jerusalem-area teen.

By ANNA AHRONHEIM
Police arrest Palestinian man Arafat al-Rifaiyeh, 29, suspected of murdering Ori Ansbacher, 19, in this photo released on February 10th, 2019 (photo credit: ISRAEL POLICE)
Police arrest Palestinian man Arafat al-Rifaiyeh, 29, suspected of murdering Ori Ansbacher, 19, in this photo released on February 10th, 2019
(photo credit: ISRAEL POLICE)
The IDF on Wednesday notified the family of the Palestinian suspected of the brutal raping and murdering of an Israeli teenage girl that their home will be demolished.
“Today, March 6, 2019, the family of the terrorist Arafat Irfaiya was notified of the IDF's intent to demolish the terrorist's residence,” read a statement released by the IDF Spokesperson's Unit, adding that “the family of the terrorist has the option to appeal against the demolition.”
Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) said the attack by Irfaiya was nationalistically motivated and that he had confessed and reconstructed the murder in the woods at Ein Yael, on the outskirts of Jerusalem.
Irfaiya, from Hebron, was remanded on the charges of the murder and rape of Ori Ansbacher, whose naked body was found with multiple stab wounds in the Ein Yael forest last month. Irfaiya is expected to be charged shortly.
Shin Bet said that he “left his home in Hebron with a knife and made his way to the village of Beit Jala,” just south of Jerusalem and from there, he “walked to the forest, where he saw Ori, attacked and murdered her.”
According to a report by Channel 12 news on Saturday, Irfaiya told investigators that he did not plan the attack in advance aside from buying a Jewish skullcap so that he would be able to slip into Israel.
“I bought the skullcap two weeks before, so I could enter Israel without being suspected or identified as an illegal resident,” Irfaiya reportedly told investigators, adding that he left his home “to kill a Jew due to the occupation and treatment of Arabs at checkpoints.”
According to the report, Irfaiya told investigators that he crossed paths with Ansbacher in the forest, where she was sitting on a rock, writing, and he decided that he would have sex with her “whether she consents or not.”
He subsequently pulled out a knife and stabbed her three times before dragging her several meters away and stabbed her again before he gagged her with her scarf and bound her hands with the belt he was wearing and raped her.
When he fled the scene, he took the memory card of her cellphone and destroyed it.
Irfaiya was arrested in a joint operation by the Israel Defense Forces, the Shin Bet and the Israel Border Police's YAMAM counter-terrorism unit in an abandoned building near the Jamal Abdel-Nasser Mosque in the El-Bireh area of Ramallah, following intelligence received by security forces.
According to reports, authorities were able to identify him as the murder suspect “without question” from DNA evidence found at the scene. The knife he used in the attack was also found by security forces.
While some NGOs and human rights organizations criticize the army for using collective punishment by demolishing the homes of the terrorists' families, the IDF believes they are a key deterrent to stop other potential attackers.
On Monday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that the homes belonging to Palestinian attackers would be demolished.
"We will do everything to speed up the demolition of these murderers' houses, like the murderer of Ori Ansbacher,” he said after a vehicular ramming attack in the West Bank. “I gave instructions to speed up the demolitions of these homes within the limitations of the judicial system. We are determined to continue our vigorous struggle against murderers and against terror wherever it is.”