Police on Tuesday removed a gag order over the details of the gruesome case which they had described as ‘one of the most shocking in the country's history’.

The grandfather, identified as Ronny Ron, 45, lived in the coastal town of Natanya just north of Tel Aviv together with 23-year-old Marie Pisam, a French woman who had immigrated to Israel together with Ron's son Benjamin, with whom she had a daughter named Rose.

Benjamin divorced Marie some three years ago after he found out his wife was having an affair with his father, and on Tuesday Ron and Pisam have two children together, police said.

Leading police investigator Ilan Ben Shalom said that Ron had admitted to beating Rose to death before stuffing her body into a suitcase and throwing it into the Yarkon river in Tel Aviv three months ago.

"Ronny and Marie are involved in the murder and disappearance of Rose," Ben Shalom said at the press conference.

Although he had reconstructed the murder, Ron later retracted his testimony, Ben Shalom said. Police have yet to locate the body.

"We have conducted an extensive search in different places, including the Yarkon river where for several days we applied different means to locate the body," he said.