The trial of three Palestinian Authority (PA) Arabs charged with the sadistic murder of a Christian tourist and the attempted murder of her Israeli friend began Sunday in the Jerusalem District Court. 

The Arabs, Aiad Fatfata, Kifakh Ganimat and Ibrahim Ganimat, are residents of the villages of Surif and Tarkumiya in the Hevron area. They are charged with two counts of murder, two attempted murders and rape, in a series of crimes they took part in as part of a suspected 13-man gang. 

The attackers approached the women in the forest and tied them up. They later confessed to Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) interrogators that they had come there with the intent of murdering Jews. 

She realized that despite being stabbed 12 times with a breadknife, she was alive. The knife had failed to penetrate her heart. 

“A few minutes later I woke up, but not in the same place where I had been stabbed. I wanted to go back to the path so that they would find my body and know that it had been a murder,” she explained.

“I managed to get up and I walked barefoot, bleeding with broken ribs, for 15 minutes, until I saw someone I could ask for help.”