An IDF military court convicted a Palestinian teenager on Monday for the November 2013 stabbing murder of the 19-year-old soldier Eden Atias during a bus ride in the northern town of Afula.
The teenager, a West Bank resident, planned to kill a soldier and bought a knife prior to the attack, the court said. His sentence is to be handed down at a later date.
The court did not release the killer’s identity due to his age. The 16-year-old, from the West Bank city of Jenin, was indicted in December.
Atias was asleep on the bus when he was stabbed multiple times by his attacker, who had crossed the Green Line from the West Bank without a permit prior to the attack and was arrested immediately after it.
The attacker’s indictment stated that Atias was chosen as a target because the suspect thought that attacking a female soldier or a border policeman, both of whom sat on the bus at some distance away from the attacker, would not result in their deaths.
He then approached the sleeping Atias from behind, gagged the soldier’s mouth and slit his throat several times, the indictment said.
Atias had enlisted only two weeks earlier and was still in basic training. He was traveling to his base after a sick leave.
During his interrogation, the suspect claimed that he had acted to avenge his relatives, who are imprisoned in Israel for terrorist activity. Reports have indicated two of his family members are in jail for convictions related to the murder of Israelis.