Police arrest suspect in West Bank assault on Palestinian bus driver

Police on Thursday evening arrested one of two young men in Modiin Illit suspected of assaulting a Palestinian bus driver as he dropped off passengers in the ultra-Orthodox settlement last week.

The suspect, in his 20s, will be brought before the Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court Monday afternoon where authorities will request he be kept in custody.

The driver, Nidal Fakih from the Shuafat refugee camp in East Jerusalem, told authorities he was dropping off passengers in the central West Bank town last Thursday night when a car pulled up in front of his bus and blocked the road.

Two young men exited the car, boarded the bus and began speaking to Fakih. When the suspects identified him as Palestinian, they began beating him.

https://twitter.com/nbjovsr88/status/1073343799441743877

Footage from shortly after the assault shows Fakih bruised, bleeding profusely from his left eye and unable to move from his seat.

An Arab Israeli bus driver came to assist him and shouted at passengers for allowing the assault to take place. A passerby was heard responding, “You [Arabs] are all guilty.”

Police said Friday that the assault was nationalistically motivated.

The Kavim bus company, which operates in Modiin Illit, said last week that a group of its drivers in the ultra-Orthodox settlement would be striking to protest the violence they’ve endured at the hands of “a small minority of extremists” in the town.

“The company’s management will not tolerate violence of any kind against its employees, and will act to bring to justice any person who commits such acts of violence,” a statement from Kavim said.

On Monday, hundreds of buses exited together from the neighboring town of Modiin in a convoy to Jerusalem with banners hung below their dashboard windows that read “Enough with the violence against drivers.”

מחאת נהגי האוטובוסים: מאות נהגים יצאו בשיירה ממודיעין לכנסת במחאה על גל האלימות נגדם. על פי נתוני ארגון נהגי האוטובוסים בישראל, מעל ל-50 אירועי אלימות מדווחים לארגון מידי חודש. בפועל, מספרים בארגון כי מדובר במספר גבוה הרבה יותר@sharonidan pic.twitter.com/y7PMFKf0D7

— כאן חדשות (@kann_news) December 17, 2018

The Organization of Israeli Bus Drivers says its members endure more than 50 incidents of violence at the hands of passengers each month.

The incident came after a number of Palestinian terror attacks against Israelis in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, to which groups of settler youths have responded by hurling stones and assaulting Palestinians.

On Thursday evening, dozens of settler youths rioted at the scene of a deadly terror shooting in the central West Bank, human rights activists and Palestinian reports said.

A number of rock-throwing incidents were also reported Thursday throughout the West Bank.

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Two Israeli soldiers were killed in a Thursday shooting outside the Givat Assaf outpost, while a third soldier was critically wounded and a civilian woman seriously injured.

The shooting came just days after seven Israelis were injured in a drive-by shooting by Palestinian terrorists outside the Ofra settlement. Among the wounded was a pregnant woman whose baby was delivered by an emergency caesarean section but died on Wednesday.