Police probe assault on Palestinian bus driver in West Bank settlement

Police on Friday opened a probe into the assault of a Palestinian bus driver by a pair of Israelis in the ultra-Orthodox settlement of Modiin Illit.

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 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 realized he was Palestinian, they began beating him.

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

An Arab-Israeli bus driver came to assist him and shouts at passengers for allowing the assault to take place. A passerby is heard responding, “You’re all guilty. Don’t you see what’s happening in the world?”

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Police have yet to catch the assailants, who are suspected of carrying out the nationalistically motivated assault.

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.

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

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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.

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 C-section but died on Wednesday.