Esther Horgan
Esther HorganCourtesy of Horgan family

A military court sentenced the terrorist who carried out the 2020 murder of Esther Horgan to life and three years in prison.

Mohammad Maroh Kabha will also pay the Horgan family compensation in the amount of more than NIS 3 million.

Esther Horgan was 52 when she was murdered, and is survived by her husband and six children. She had gone out for a walk in a forested area near her home of Tal Menashe in Samaria when she encountered Kabha, who killed her by repeatedly hitting her over the head with a rock, inflicting deadly wounds as a result.

Kabha was later arrested and confessed to the crime, which, he said, was in revenge for the death of a friend of his, a convicted terrorist, who died of cancer while in serving time in an Israeli prison a few weeks before Horgan's murder. The Palestinian Authority intentionally distorted the circumstances of the terrorist's death, claiming that the man had been killed by Israeli security forces.

Kabha was convicted of intentionally causing Horgan's death three months ago. During the hearing, the Prosecution demanded a life sentence for the terrorist. At that same hearing, Odelya, Horgan's daughter related something of what the family has been through since the tragic incident that claimed her mother's life.

"My mother was an exceptional person," she said, "and after she was gone, our lives were turned upside-down. "My mother is no longer here in times of difficulty nor in times of joy. Our lives are divided into 'before' and 'after.' Each day the pain grows stronger."

Horgan's husband, Binyamin, added, "It upsets me very much that only the murderer is sitting on the defendant's bench, even though this murder was premeditated. He was incited to take revenge for the death of his friend who died in an Israeli prison of cancer, but this death was portrayed by the Palestinian Authority as a killing, and that propelled him to go out and take revenge."

"Those who sent him - and I mean the leaders of the Palestinian Authority - are now paying him huge sums of money. It's unbelievable that we allow this to happen. This court should not allow a penny of that money to reach this terrorist or his family. [My wife's murder] wounded us to the core of our beings and the scar will remain forever."