Would-be bomber sentenced to 12 years
Wafa Samir Ibrahim Bas, the young Palestinian woman who planned to carry out a suicide bombing attack on Beer Sheva’s Soroka Hospital in June, told military court, ‘I failed in university; my father treated me badly, hit me and said I would never marry – that I would be a cripple. I suffer from burns and I am in a bad mental state’
(Video) I regret all that I have done and want to continue on with my life - I have asked for mental treatment, Wafa Samir Ibrahim Bas, the young Palestinian woman who planned to carry out a suicide attack on Beer Sheva’s Soroka Hospital in June, told a military court Thursday.
On June 20 Bas, a resident of the north Gaza village of Jabalya, was detained at the Erez Crossing in Gaza as she was making her way to Soroka, where she had been previously treated after she was burned in her home while preparing a meal.
Bas at Erez Crossing (Video: IDF Spokespersons Office)
The military court convicted her of knowingly attempting to cause death, but sentenced her to 12 years in prison, eight less than the maximum sentence for such a crime.
“I am a woman who has received many beatings, not one,” she said before her sentencing.
Controlled detonation of bomb at Erez crossing (Photo: Tzafrir Abayov)
“I failed in university; my father treated me badly, hit me and said I would never marry – that I would be a cripple. I suffer from burns and I am in a bad mental state.”
Bas said she regrets her actions, adding that “The person who sent me took advantage of me. I wanted to blow myself up at the (Erez) crossing and end my life.”
Bas’ attorney pleaded with the court to consider the fact that she was not a member of any terror organization, saying her parents had ordered her to commit the act.
The judges said in the ruling that Bas attempted to detonate the bomb, which was hidden in her underwear, twice after being apprehended at the Erez Crossing. They rejected her attorney’s claim whereby she was trying to commit suicide.
“If she wanted to kill herself she could have done it somewhere else, and not at the Erez crossing, where hundreds of citizens and soldiers pass each day,” they said in the ruling.
The judges said Bas received a reduced sentence due to “extremely harsh personal circumstances.”
