The Aug. 7 murder of Dvir Sorek, a 19-year-old soldier from the West Bank settlement of Ofra, was probably carried out by an organized terror cell. Initially, authorities suspected its members tried to kidnap Sorek, but further investigation led to the conclusion that he was stabbed to death by one or more assailants who had tailed him in their car along a 200-meter stretch of road on which he had been walking. Sorek had gotten off a bus at the southern gate to the Etzion settlement bloc of Efrat and was heading for the nearby yeshiva next to the settlement of Migdal Oz, where he studied as part of a combined religious study-military service program.
Israeli security officials believe the attack was neither a local initiative nor “popular terrorism” — a term the military uses to describe terrorists unaffiliated with any organization. The working hypothesis is that a Hamas or Islamic Jihad group operating in the Hebron area was responsible for the murder. While neither group claimed responsibility for the attack, both hailed its perpetrators. Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem described the attack as “the most powerful response” to recent talk about Israeli intentions to annex Area C of the West Bank, saying it “proved that Israel had failed in its security coordination with the Palestinian Authority (PA).” Hamas also urged West Bank residents to hide the perpetrators so that Israel could not catch them.