The case law required the interpretation of the words "an act that does not involve preparation alone." It was held that the preparatory stage is characterized by the defendant acquiring means, gathering information, planning and performing an action that is intended to create conditions for the commission of the offense, while the trial stage contains an action or actions, which are part of a series of actions that would otherwise have fulfilled the behavioral element of the offense. It was determined that an action that crosses the preparatory acts is characterized by a "qualitative leap" that distinguishes between a stage "the early arrangements" of the operation for the execution phase.
In general, the two tests that are accepted today in case law for distinguishing between "preparation" and "experience" are:
The test of sufficient proximity - according to which it is necessary to examine how far the perpetrator was from the realization of his criminal plan. The closer he is to completing the offense, the greater the tendency to see his actions as an "attempt" to commit it. The closer the process of committing the offense approaches, the closer it is to the completion of the offense, the more his actions will be seen as deviating from preparatory acts to experimental acts.
The monotony test - according to which behavior is included in the definition of an attempt when the perpetrator has taken an initial action, which unequivocally reveals his intentions. One must look at the behavior of the perpetrator, as if it were a "silent film" without hearing his words and reading his thoughts. At the stage when it becomes unequivocal to the "viewer" that the subject of the film intends to commit an offense, the acts crystallize into an attempt (see: Yosef Elron and Omer Razin, Homicide Offenses: The Law and Case Law, p. 164 (2025)).
The Mental Element What is required for the consolidation of the offense of attempted murder after the reform of the offenses of murder (Amendment 137 to the Penal Law, which came into effect on July 10, 2019), consists of two things: first, the existence of the mental element required for the finished offense that the defendant attempted to commit must be proven; Second, a purpose must be proven to commit the main offense (Yoram Rabin and Yaniv Vaki Penal Law, Vol. 1 565 (2014)). Accordingly, the mental element of the offense of attempted murder includes all the elements of criminal thought required in the offense of murder (awareness of all the elements of the factual element, including the circumstances and the objective level of indifference or intent to result in death), as well as the purpose of committing the offense of murder.