Ori Ansbacher. Photo: Courtesy.

JNS.org – Prosecutors asked the Jerusalem District Court on Wednesday to sentence Palestinian terrorist Arafat Irfaiya to life in prison plus 21 years for the 2019 killing of Ori Ansbacher.

Irfaiya, from Hebron, brutally raped and murdered the then-19-year-old Ansbacher, who at the time was performing national service at the Yealim Center for at-risk boys and those with special needs in the Ein Yael area of Jerusalem. She entered a forested area near the capital’s Biblical Zoo on the morning of Feb. 7, 2019, where Irfaiya identified her as Jewish and decided to kill her.

Irfaiya later confessed to and reenacted the crime, saying he had purchased a kipah, which was found following the attack, to allow him to carry out his plan of murdering a Jew. He and his family support Hamas.

He entered the Jerusalem area on foot through a 200-meter-wide gap in the security fence near Beit Jala. In 2015, the High Court of Justice accepted a petition against the construction of the fence at the site and ordered the government to find an alternative solution. The directive was not carried out and the gap remained.