A man was sentenced to 18 years in prison on Thursday, after being convicted by a Tel Aviv court for attempting to rape a 9-year-old girl at knifepoint and stabbing her mother in their Tel Aviv home about a year ago. He was also ordered to pay the child and her mother 100,000 shekels in compensation.

The defendant, a Sudanese citizen, confessed as part of a plea deal to a number of offenses including burglary, attempted rape of a minor, assault and theft. The prosecution asked the Tel Aviv District Court for a prison sentence of more than 20 years, while the defendant’s attorney asked for a sentence of eight years at the most.

In March 2013, at 5 A.M., Mohammed Suleim broke into a home in south Tel Aviv and tried to rape a girl by holding a knife to her throat and threatening her little brother. When the children’s mother, who heard the girl crying, entered the room the intruder stabbed her in the stomach. At this point the children’s father attacked the perpetrator and beat him until he lost consciousness.

Judges Sara Dotan, Avi Zamir and Yaron Levy dismissed the attorney’s argument that Suleim had broken into the house intending only to steal from it.

The judges said in their verdict that the defendant must be held accountable for his apparent motives - “morbid sexual lust, which was aroused at the sight of a 9-year-old sleeping in her underwear, and greed.” These motives affect the severity of his act and his guilt, the judges said.

Levy, who wrote the verdict, said the judges took into consideration the defendant’s age, 22 at the time, and his apology and remorse for what he did. They also considered the fact that he was his family’s main provider, supported nine brothers in Sudan, and that he arrived in Israel after suffering tuberculosis and spending a long time in an Egyptian prison.