JERUSALEM (JTA) — A Palestinian teenager was convicted by an Israeli military court for stabbing an Israeli soldier to death on a public bus.

The Palestinian boy, 16, from the West Bank city of Jenin, told military interrogators that he had planned to kill a soldier in revenge for relatives jailed in Israel for terror activities.

Pvt. Eden Atias of Nazareth-Illit, 18, was returning to his base and reportedly was asleep at the time of the attack on the bus traveling to Tel Aviv. The assailant approached the soldier from behind and slit his throat several times.