Murders of Neta Sorek and Kristine Luken

Neta Sorek and Kristine Luken were two women killed in separate knife attacks in the wooded hills west of Jerusalem in 2010, in incidents later linked to the same Palestinian cell. Both cases were solved after a survivor's account and forensic evidence led investigators to the attackers, who were convicted in Israeli courts. [Wikipedia]

Neta Sorek grew up on Kibbutz Afikim, lived in Sweden and the United States, and returned to Israel, where she taught English in Zikhron Ya'akov for 13 years and took part in Arab-Jewish coexistence projects through the group Women for Peace. On 24 February 2010, members of a Palestinian cell entered Israel through gaps in the security barrier, stole a car in Beit Shemesh, and waited near the Beit Jimal Monastery, where Sorek was staying at a nearby guest house. She went for a walk in the monastery gardens and was fatally stabbed. When she did not return, her family searched the area, and her cousin and two friends found her body. An autopsy showed her death was the result of foul play. [Wikipedia]

Kristine Luken, an American citizen from Texas who had worked for the U.S. Department of Education before joining the Church's Ministry Among Jewish People, was hiking in the Mata forest near Beit Shemesh on 18 December 2010 with her friend Kay Wilson, a British-born Israeli tour guide. Two men attacked the pair with a serrated knife, robbed them, bound them, and stabbed them. Wilson was stabbed 13 times and suffered extensive injuries but freed herself and walked more than 1,200 meters, bound and barefoot, to a parking lot where a family alerted the authorities. Luken died in the attack; after an overnight search, police found her body bound in bushes. [Wikipedia]

DNA recovered from a penknife Wilson used to wound one attacker led police to the cell about a month later. Ayad Fatfata and Kifah Ghanimat were linked to the scene and confessed; investigators identified a four-member cell from the Hebron region that included Ibrahim Ghanimat. Cell members also confessed to Sorek's killing earlier that year. [Wikipedia]

The Jerusalem District Court convicted Kifah Ghanimat of Luken's murder and other offenses, including an aggravated rape from July 2009, and sentenced him to two life terms and 60 years. Ayad Fatfata was convicted of offenses including Luken's murder and the attempted murder of Wilson. Ibrahim Ghanimat was convicted of Sorek's murder and sentenced to life plus 16 years. In April 2017, U.S. prosecutors filed a criminal complaint against Fatfata and Ghanimat over the murder of a U.S. national. [Wikipedia; US Department of Justice; BBC News]