Prosecutors charged a man Monday with murder over the killing of a young boy in Beit Shemesh last month and the attempted murder of the child’s cousin.

Liel Ifergan, 26, was accused at Jerusalem District Court of stabbing to death 7-year-old Hillel Mordechai Dadon and injuring his 4-year-old cousin, while their parents were out of the house

“It is difficult to grasp the gap between an innocent game played by two children in a pool, and the defendant’s decision to arm himself with a knife and take their lives,” prosecutors said in a statement.

Prosecutors requested that Ifergan be detained until the end of legal proceedings. The court ordered that he undergo a psychological assessment that will be submitted within ten days.

According to prosecutors, on August 17 the children were playing in an inflatable pool in their grandmother’s yard when Ifergan rushed in from a nearby apartment carrying a knife and stabbed Hillel Mordechai in the chest and his cousin in the neck.

He then fled the scene and cleaned the blood off the knife, prosecutors say.

In a statement to the media, Hillel’s father Amos said: “We hope that justice will soon be served.”

He said that the incident had........

© The Times of Israel