Killings of Koby Mandell and Yosef Ishran

Koby Mandell and Yosef Ishran were two Jewish teenagers, aged 13 and 14, who were killed on 8 May 2001 on the outskirts of the Israeli settlement of Tekoa in the West Bank, where they lived with their families. Koby Mandell held dual United States and Israeli citizenship; his family had emigrated from the United States to Israel in 1996. The identity of those responsible has never been determined, though Israel and a number of sources have stated that unidentified Palestinian assailants were responsible.

On the day of their deaths, the boys skipped school and went hiking in the Judean Desert surrounding their village. Their parents initially assumed the boys had gone to school and then to a demonstration in Jerusalem, and informed the authorities only when they had not returned by midnight. The bodies of the two boys were found the following morning in a cave near the settlement. Citing police, USA Today reported that both boys had been bound, stabbed and beaten to death with rocks, and that the bodies were so badly disfigured that dental records were used for identification. The Jerusalem Post reported that police could not determine whether the boys had been killed outside the cave or placed there afterward. The funeral was attended by thousands of people.

Israeli police issued several statements about who might be responsible, at points referencing thieves who stole about 100 goats from Tekoa the same night, while also saying there was no clear link between the two events. One police commander expressed the view that the killings were carried out for nationalistic reasons, and police described the incident as appearing to result from a chance encounter rather than a planned attack. Israeli security forces arrested 20 Palestinians from nearby villages and imposed curfews and roadblocks. An anonymous caller claiming to represent an Islamic militant group contacted news agencies to claim responsibility, but the claim could not be authenticated. Later accounts variously attributed the killings to Islamic Jihad, a group described as 'Hizbullah-Palestine,' or, in a 2008 Jerusalem Post report, to Bedouin shepherds. According to a 2004 U.S. Congressional report, there was never a meaningful investigation or prosecution, and the perpetrators had not been apprehended.

The Israeli government condemned the killings; Prime Minister Ariel Sharon blamed the Palestinian Authority and ordered a missile strike on Fatah offices in Gaza City. The Palestinian Authority also condemned the killings, with spokesman Saeb Erekat expressing regret over the loss of life, while Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat blamed Israel for harm to Palestinian children. The killings prompted U.S. legislation known as the Koby Mandell Act, which sought to create an Office of Justice for Victims of Overseas Terrorism; its provisions were later incorporated into a 2004 omnibus spending bill. Koby Mandell's parents, Seth and Sherri Mandell, established the Koby Mandell Foundation to support families bereaved by terrorist attacks.