Man arrested in connection with Afula bus driver stabbing

Police on Thursday said a 28-year-old man was arrested overnight in connection with the stabbing of a bus driver in the northern Israel city of Afula.

A group of youths boarded the bus on Wednesday evening, and one of them stabbed driver Shimon Gabai. Police did not say whether the arrested man was suspected of carrying out the attack.

The motive behind the assault was still unclear and under investigation, police said. Gabai, who lost consciousness in the attack, said Thursday he believed the motive was terrorism. “To me it seemed more like a terror attack than a criminal one,” he said.

Gabai lost control of the bus after he sustained a serious head injury in the attack. The vehicle hit another car and the wall of a store, and ended up smashing into a fire hydrant. Video showed water gushing from the hydrant and flooding the street.

Before he lost consciousness, the 62-year-old driver said he had been stabbed in the head by one of the youths.

Gabai was taken to the city’s Haemek Medical Center and later transferred to Rambam Hospital in Haifa due to the severity of his injuries. He regained consciousness on Thursday morning but remained in intensive care.

In addition to the driver, two people were treated for injuries sustained when the bus rammed into their car.

Bus drivers on some lines throughout the country held a limited strike on Thursday morning in protest against violence and the perceived lack of action against it.

“Violence against the bus drivers is a daily matter,” Haroun Shubash, chairman of the workers’ committee, told the Ynet news website. “It was clear that until serious harm was done, nothing would happen. The disregard of the police and the Transportation Ministry is hard to understand — after all, the assault of a driver endangers the passengers and those in the vehicles around him.”