The Jerusalem District Court sentenced 19-year-old Muhammad Shuman of the northern-Jerusalem neighborhood of Beit Hanina to 13 years in prison, Thursday, for the March 2012 stabbing of soldier Yehudit Aharon on the Jerusalem light rail.
Aharon suffered moderate wounds in the attack.
Under a plea bargain, Shuman was convicted of attempted murder, possessing a knife and obstructing justice. A revised indictment submitted to the court determined that Shuman did not plan the attack ahead of time.
Shuman left his home on the morning of March 15, 2012, equipped with a knife. When he reached the gate to the school where he studies, he decided not to go in, and at 10 a.m. he took the light rail back to his home. When he went on the train, he saw the female soldier and sat down opposite her.
A few seconds before the train stopped at his station, Shuman stabbed the young Jewish woman several times and when the doors opened, and he ran away toward his home, where he met his brother and told him what he had done.
He then got on a bus toward Kalandia, with the aim of hiding with relatives in Ramallah. During the bus ride, he threw the knife out the window of the bus. This information somehow reached the police. At the Kalandia crossing, he was arrested, and he admitted his crime in the initial interrogation. He said he had stabbed the soldier as revenge for Israel's actions against Arabs.