A street cleaner discovered a bomb planted on a sidewalk in Nahariya on Monday near the parking space reserved for the city´s mayor Jacky Sebag.

A police bomb squad called to the scene just after 4 a.m. made the device safe and removed it from the scene. The explosive was not big, police spokesman Eran Shaked told The Jerusalem Post.

"Sebag has been under threat for years, and has bodyguards assigned to him," Shaked said. The mayor is part of a list of publc officials eligible for publicly-funded security.

Police had no immediate leads in the case, but have launched an investigation.

Police say Sebag has been threatened on several occasions in the past due to his position as mayor of the northern city.

In 2006, unknown attackers hurled grenades at Sebag and a police officer. Sebag´s home was damaged in the explosion. Soon after that attack, Sebag was assaulted while attending a wedding.

The officer would go on to join three colleagues who would take the law into their own hands and plant explosives outside the home of organized crime boss Michael Mor, an act for which the police officers served several monnths in prison for.

In 2009, a young resident was fined 5,000 shekels for threatening the mayor.

The Nahariya Municipality did not answer calls on Monday. (© 1995- 2011, The Jerusalem Post 05/21/12)