Esther Horgen, the Israeli mother of six killed in a suspected terror attack near her Tal Menashe home. Photo: Courtesy of the family

An Israeli military court on Wednesday convicted a Palestinian man for the murder of Esther Horgen in December of last year, prompting Horgen’s family to call for the leaders of the Palestinian Authority to face consequences for inciting and enabling terrorism.

Muhammad Mruh Kabha murdered Horgen, 52, while she was walking in a forest near her home in Tal Menashe in the northern West Bank. He was arrested four days after the killing.

Israeli news site Walla reported that Horgen’s family said after the verdict, “We are satisfied with the conviction. This step advances us toward the end of the legal process that has gone on for too long.”

Kabha, they said, should “rot behind bars until the end of his days.”

The family also issued a strong condemnation of the Palestinian Authority, charging it with inciting and encouraging the murder.

“We are sorry that those who sent the murderer are not sitting next to him in the dock,” they said.

The PA, the family asserted, drives terrorism through “blood libels and education for hate and killing, and pays massive sums to terrorists and their families.”

The Horgen family called for the leaders of the PA to be put on trial, saying it would deter further killings.

Morris Hirsch, the family’s lawyer, said that Kabha “did not operate in a vacuum. The incitement disseminated by the PA and the rewards it pays to every terrorist made a significant and essential contribution to the commission of this horrific murder.”

“We call on the prime minister and defense minister to change their policies and act aggressively against the heads of the PA who incite the murder of Jews, and to eliminate the PA’s policy of paying rewards to terrorists,” he added.

“The legal mechanism already exists,” Hirsch said, “what is needed now is only the will to act.”