The brother of the man whose body was found last week in a palm grove in the Jordan Valley says his family is convinced that the murder was a terror attack. "He was brutally murdered. We still believe that only a terrorist could abuse a body like this."
"He studied Torah," the brother stated. "Last weekend, he called and said he was traveling to the north and then going home. He didn't contact us or answer the phone, which is rare for him. In the middle of the week, we began to worry that G-d forbid something happened.
Last Thursday, police officers came, they said that my brother is missing, and didn't say anything else. They didn't even tell us that a body was found and that it was sent to be identified. Only by cross-referencing media reports were we able to assume it was him while praying that we were mistaken and he'll return home at any moment."
The family still believes that the murder was a terror attack: "Only terrorists would carry out such a brutal murder. It doesn't make sense that a Jew would do something like this. The victim was a good man. He was always optimistic. I would sit with him on the bench in the backyard, and he would tell me how everything is good and how life's beautiful. There's no chance that they would harm him for something bad that he did, it can't happen, there's no chance."
Earlier on Monday, the Jerusalem Magistrates Court disclosed that an investigation into a suspected criminal-related murder was in the process in the case. The court revealed that a suspect was arrested. The suspect's details, along with the rest of the details of the case, remain under gag order.
The victim was a father of three and was unemployed. He was laid to rest on Sunday and left behind his parents and five siblings. His body was found by Palestinian Arabs, and the PA police transferred it to the Israeli police.