BREAKING NEWS

Interior Minster begins process to cancel citizenship of 2012 Tel Aviv bomber

Interior Minister Silvan Shalom on Thursday night began the process of cancelling the citizenship of Mohammed Mafarja, an Arab Israeli who carried out a bombing in Tel Aviv in November 2012.
The Population, Immigration, and Borders Authority said Thursday that the cancellation is “a step meant to deter those who seek to carry out terror attacks”.
PIBA added that Shalom will now turn to the Attorney General to receive approval for the move.
In October 2014 Mafarja, a resident of Taibe, was sentenced to 25 years in prison for the bombing, which injured 24 people.  Two people were moderately to seriously wounded in the bombing and 8 people were lightly wounded. The bomb was left on the bus by Mafarja and then remote-detonated by cell phone. After planting the bomb, Mafarja boarded a train for Modi’in, to work a shift at a local McDonald’s.
The bombing was carried out on November 21st 2012, while Israel and Hamas were fighting Operation Pillar of Defense. Seen as a game changer during the conflict, the bombing was followed just hours later by an Egyptian-brokered truce that ended the fighting in Gaza.