One of the necessary, but gut-wrenching, tasks here is to chronicle the systematic war against Jews by Palestinian terrorists, often using “children” (under 18) to carry out the attacks.
This war started long before Israel recaptured Judea and Samaria (the “West Bank”) in 1967, and it has continued unabated.
The Second Intifada, launched by Yasser Arafat after he rejected Israeli concessions at Camp David, killed over 1000 Israeli civilians, many through suicide bombings until a combination of a security barrier and a military offensive broke the Palestinian terror gangs in the West Bank. You will often hear complaints about the security barrier (a wall in parts, fencing in other parts) disrupting the lives of Palestinians in the West Bank, but you almost never will hear those activists acknowledge that the barrier was built only after the suicide bombing campaign.
In recent years, a hallmark of the terror have been knifings, giving rise to the name “Knife Intifada.” There are very up close and personal fits of rage in which the victims are butchered in their homes and on the street and in the forests.
In 2015 we covered the Knife Intifada: “spasms of bloody and murderous irrationality”. This surge of bloodletting does not take place in isolation, there is extensive Palestinian incitement encouraging more attacks, including by children.
This is not an exhaustive list, but here are some of the knife terror attacks we have covered:
Unfortunately, there is another knifing murder to report, of Israeli teen Ori Ansbacher, who was found naked with multiple stab wounds in a forest on the edge of Jerusalem.
After Ori’s body was found, there were a lot of rumors as to what was done to her. So far, only that she was stabbed to death has been confirmed by the police. The Times of Israel reported:
Police on Friday urged the public to stop spreading “horrific” and baseless rumors on social media surrounding the murder of a teenager whose body was discovered on the outskirts of Jerusalem.Ori Ansbacher, a 19-year-old from the West Bank settlement of Tekoa, was found dead Thursday with what police said were “signs of violence” after she was reported missing earlier in the day. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Ansbacher had been killed with “shocking brutality,” and police sources were quoted saying she had been stabbed multiple times in the upper torso.
When her body was discovered, her parents told the Hebrew media:
Ansbacher’s parents, Noa and Gadi, told Hebrew-language media their daughter was “a holy soul seeking meaning, with a sensitivity for every person and creature and an infinite desire to correct the world with goodness.”One of her high school teachers told Channel 13 news that Ori was “a smart and honest girl with an original and creative intellectual openness. She cared for the environment and was sensitive to others.”Ansbacher was carrying out a year of national service at a youth center in Jerusalem at the time of her death.
Ori’s mother issued a statement:
“I ask from those who are listening to us and for whom our words are entering their hearts, to do one small thing to add light to the world — one act of kindness and maybe we will preserve Ori’s [soul] in the world and maybe we will have some comfort by adding light to the world,” said Na’ah Ansbacher, referring to her daughter’s name, which means “my light” in Hebrew.“It’s important for us that the world know who Ori was,” she said. “Ori was a child of light, adding so much light in the world. She cured broken hearts wherever she went, be it with her girlfriends, the boys and girls she worked with in her national [volunteer] service, even people she did not know.
Ori Ansbacher. (Courtesy)“Sometimes when I spoke with her I felt that it was not a conversation between a mother and a daughter, but that she was my teacher,” Na’ah Ansbacher added. “Recently she talked a lot about compassion — that she wanted to be compassionate toward realities that were difficult for her, with people who were hard on her.”Na’ah Ansbacher said that her daughter had been a poet whose work “brought expression to who she was in the world.”“Ori taught us to marvel at the sunrise, the sunset, the blooming, the sun, the rain, the world,” she said.
Initially the Israeli police were reluctant to declare this a terror attack, since in theory it could have been criminal/sexual attack not motivated by politics. But after investigation, the police confirmed is was politically-motivated terror:
The Shin Bet security service announced Sunday that the brutal murder of 19-year-old Ori Ansbacher was a nationalistically motivated terror attack.The intelligence agency, which is running the investigation with assistance from the Israel Police, had held off on announcing a terror motive, despite proclamations to that effect from right-wing lawmakers and pundits that began shortly after Ansbacher’s body was found in a forest on the outskirts of Jerusalem, on Thursday evening.
This video shows the area of the forest where the attack took place and was reinacted:
The Jerusalem Post reports:
Security officials say that Arafat Irfaiya, 29, from Hebron has confessed to killing Ori Ansbacher, 19, and reconstructed the murder for police on Sunday ahead of his arraignment in court….Irfaiya was arrested in a joint operation by the IDF, the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) and the Border Police’s Yamam counter-terrorism unit in an abandoned building near the Jamal Abdel-Nasser Mosque in el-Bireh, which adjoins Ramallah, following intelligence received by security forces.According to reports, authorities received information that he was hiding in the mosque and proceeded to raid it on Friday evening. When Irfaiya was not found, troops confiscated security camera footage from the neighborhood and returned later that night to conduct a second raid on a nearby abandoned building, where he was arrested without putting up a struggle.The knife he is believed to have used in the murder was found during the arrest….The Shin Bet General Security Service said that the suspect “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.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his wife Sara visited with the family
You cannot understand Israelis unless you understand that for several decades they have lived under the constant threat of terror. When Gazans try to breach the border fence armed with knives, it’s no joke. While bringing a knife to a gun fight may not be good advice, many Israelis and friends of Israel have died in knife terror attacks.
That terror is not about territory, it’s about religiously motivated hate and an unwillingness to permit a Jewish outpost in the heart of the Muslim world.
The Israeli police released more details:
The Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court on Monday extended the remand of the Palestinian man suspected of brutally murdering Israeli teen Ori Ansbacher for an additional ten days.It was the first time Irfaiya appeared before cameras since his Friday arrest in the West Bank city of Ramallah. He had open scabs on his forehead, nose and below his right eye. The suspect appeared to smirk from his seat as photographers flashed their cameras before being ushered out of the courtroom.Despite a last-minute official appeal from reporters, the judge decided to hold the session behind closed doors. Channel 12 news reported that investigators from the Shin Bet security service and Israel Police hope to indict Arafat Irfaiya, a 29-year-old Hebron resident, for murder in the context of a terrorist act in addition to a charge of rape.Details regarding the rape charge had previously remained under wraps due to a court-imposed gag order.
CLICK HERE FOR FULL VERSION OF THIS STORY