After He Stabbed to Death This Mother of Six, Teen Assailant Washed His Hands and Watched Movie at Home

After he plunged his knife multiple times into an Israeli mother who was at home with her children, the 16-year-old Palestinian attacker went home and watched a movie with his family, according to Israeli court documents.

Israeli media reported that the chilling detail from Morad Bader Abdullah Adais’s interrogation was revealed in the indictment filed against him Monday for the January murder of Dafna Meir, a 39-year-old mother of six, two of them foster children.

Dafna Meir expressed fears for the safety of her family during these months of nearly daily Palestinian attacks on Jews. She wrote about her worries in a community publication. (Image source: Dafna Meir’s blog)

Israel’s Ynet reported that Adais, who was arrested two days after the Jan. 17 killing, confessed his crime to interrogators.

He said that before leaving his home near Hebron for the Jewish settlement of Otniel, he watched two Palestinian television channels and social media videos that presented Israeli soldiers as murderers and people who humiliate Palestinian women.

The teen told interrogators that after he watched the videos he decided to kill Jews "until he would die the holy death of a martyr,” Ynet reported.

He took a 6-inch kitchen knife normally used for cutting meat, hid it in his pants, and at 4 p.m. left for Otniel.

The account presented in the indictment matched many of the details previously shared by Meir’s teenage daughter who was at home when the assailant arrived.

The Times of Israel reported that Adais approached the entrance of the house where Meir was speaking on the phone:

As she walked outside, Adais ran at her with the knife in his hand. Adais plunged the knife into her stomach in the doorway to her family’s home. Meir and her children began screaming as she grappled with the terrorist, trying to push him out of the house and away from her and her kids, the indictment said.

But Adais overpowered the mother of six. He stabbed Meir a number of times in the upper body before finally stabbing her in the head, above her right eye, according to the charges against him.

Adais tried to remove the knife in order to continue his rampage, but was unable to do so. He fled the scene, as Meir lay on the floor of her kitchen bleeding to death.

Ynet observed that the indictment pointed to the suspect’s apparent indifference to what he had just done: "After the accused arrived home he noticed blood on his left hand, washed it, and then sat down to watch a movie with his family.”

Ranana Meir, Dafna Meir’s 17-year-old daughter, last month told Israel’s Channel 2 how her mother fought with the attacker to prevent him from pulling the knife out of her body to stab her children.

The Times of Israel reported that the indictment pointed out that when he couldn’t remove the knife from his victim in order to continue his rampage, Adais fled the scene.

“I saw him try to pull out the knife. I shouted to my two brothers not to go up to the living room. I understood that he [the assailant] wanted to continue. It took a few seconds until he realized that he couldn’t remove the knife, and he ran,” Ranana, the 12th-grade daughter, recalled.

Her murdered mother was lauded as a hero in Israel after wrestling with the attacker to make sure he didn’t go after three of her six children who were at home at the time of the attack.

Israel has faced a wave of Palestinian stabbing, shooting and car-ramming attacks. Many of the attackers have been teenagers, a phenomenon the Israeli government attributes to numerous media posts inciting to violence. The indictment’s description of Adais’ activities before the killing — including watching Palestinian television and social media posts — bolsters the argument that inciting media posts can fuel violence.