3 years later, Tel Aviv rape by Palestinian recognized as terror attack

The Defense Ministry has recognized a brutal rape of an Israeli teenager by a Palestinian three years ago as a terror attack — a decision that will allow the victim to receive financial support from the National Insurance Institute.

The decision, announced Thursday, marked the conclusion of an internal inquiry by the ministry.

In June 2013, the Tel Aviv Regional Court sentenced Ahmed Bani Jaber, 21, a Palestinian from the West Bank town of Nablus, to 30 years in prison for the 2012 attack on the teenage girl and her boyfriend.

Jaber forced the couple to engage in sex acts in the bathroom of a Tel Aviv mall underground parking lot, before raping the girl, then 17 years old. Jaber was also ordered to pay NIS 250,000 ($69,000) to both victims.

The sentence was one of the most severe ever given for a sex crime in Israel and among the longest possible for the offense.

Jaber was arrested at a restaurant a few days after the crime and was convicted based on the DNA evidence that placed him at the scene. At the time of the rape, he was residing in Israel illegally.