Father of murdered Ofra teen: I’m glad he never saw his killer’s faces

The father of terror victim Dvir Sorek, 18, said he was glad that his son never saw the faces of those who killed him in Wednesday’s attack outside the Migdal Oz settlement.

In a statement Yoav Sorek issued Saturday night after learning that his son’s killers had been captured, he said, “we thank the security forces for quickly capturing the terrorists, we are just sorry that they were caught alive.”

“The security forces’ main task is counter terrorism, and we ask that their ability to do this difficult task be strengthened,” he said.

With regard to his son, he said, “We’re glad that Dvir never saw his killers’ faces and we will endeavor not to see them as well, not now and not in court.”

On Friday, Yoav Sorek shared some of his thought about his son’s death with reporters as he stood at the street corner near his family’s home in Ofra. He wore a black T-shirt, torn in a manner customary for Jewish mourners in the first week following a death.

Sorek said that it was important to him that his son’s last image was not that of his killers so that his son left this world with the same innocence in which he lived, and ascended to heaven on the merits of that life rather than engaged in a battle with his killers that ultimately failed.

At the time, Sorek said that any news of the killers’ fate would do little to ease the family’s despair because no matter what fate awaits them, “Dvir will not return to us.”

Visits by ministers and parliamentarians to the family’s home as they sat in mourning have been helpful, but the public statements have not soothed them, he said. This has included statements either about settling scores with the killers or promises to officially authorize the Ofra settlement, applying sovereignty to the settlements or approving more settler construction.

“I do not like this conversation, because sacrifice shouldn’t fuel our [settlement] enterprise here,” Sorek said. “This place should be [fully] authorized because it should, and not because someone died. I don’t want to benefit from the loss of life. We are not right because we are to be pitied, and if we are to be pitied, that must be dealt with separately. And if we are right, we are right.”

He said that Dvir was born in Jerusalem, but that it is as if he was born in Ofra. The family held Dvir’s circumcision in the front lawn of their family’s home, the same place where they now mourn his loss.

“That was almost 19 years ago, and even then this place was not [fully] authorized and it’s still not [fully] authorized, but that has nothing to do with tragedy,” Sorek said.

Dvir was not wearing an IDF uniform and had not started his IDF training, but technically he had already started his service with his studies in the military Hesder program at Yeshiva Machanaim, Sorek explained.

“We never saw him in uniform, because his induction was scheduled for March,” he said. “Now that will never happen.”