An 18 year old Arab resident of Beit Omar, Musa Abu Diya, who confessed to murdering Erez Levanon, a Jewish father of three from a southern Jerusalem suburb, will be brought to the Yehuda military court Sunday, where charges will pressed against him. Besides the February murder of Levanon, he will be charged with two more attempted murders of Jews in the same Jerusalem suburb, Bat Ayin. All three offenses were committed with accomplices.
According to the indictment, Abu Diya and another Arab from Beit Omar, Musa Adam Ahalil, carried out advance reconnaissance of the area of the planned murder: every two weeks, from October 2006 onwards, Abu Diya would go to the Abu Rish riverbed which separates the towns of the accused murderer and victim to observe the movement of Jews there. Sometimes Ahalil accompanied him. On the day of the attack, February 25, 2007, the two left Beit Omar for the riverbed carrying knives to commit a murder.
Erez Levanon drove to his favorite spot halfway down the valley where he would sit, pray and meditate with pastoral scenery of stones, trees, and waterfalls across from him. According to the charge sheet, the two Arab murderers laid in wait behind a rock until Abu Diya assaulted Levanon with his knife and began struggling with him. Then Ahalil ran up to Levanon from behind and the two continued stabbing him repeatedly until he fell to the ground and died. 
Ahalil ran up to Levanon from behind and the two continued stabbing him repeatedly until he fell to the ground and died
The indictment also details two previous murder attempts by Abu Diya. The first attempt was in early 2006: Abu Diya and an accomplice infiltrated Bat Ayin and tried to open a door to a trailer home to murder the Jewish tenants. They failed to open the door. The second attempt, later in 2006, was similar: Abu Diya and an accomplice tried to open a door to a trailer home in Bat Ayin and again failed. They then unsuccessfully tried to set the home on fire by setting a gas canister alight.
Residents of the area note that Beit Omar is not only a source of repeated terror attacks, but that anti-Israel foreigners housed there are intermittently dispatched to destroy Jewish agricultural property in the area, similar to this past Friday's destruction of fruit trees in the same area.