From +972 Magazine
From Jerusalem to Haifa, bus drivers and ticket inspectors are facing an unprecedented surge in attacks — be it from ultra-Orthodox youth or soccer hooligans — forcing many to choose between livelihood and safety.
During a mass demonstration by Jerusalem’s ultra-Orthodox community against conscription to the Israeli military last week, Palestinian bus driver Fakhri Khatib, driving Egged bus 64, found himself surrounded by a mob of young protesters banging on the side of the bus. He called the police for help, but none arrived.
In a bid to escape the mob, he first reversed the bus several meters. But the protesters followed, and soon managed to prise open the door. As they forced their way inside, they kicked, spat at, and threatened Khatib, leading him to fear for his life. At this point he accelerated forward, unaware that 14-year old Yosef Eisenthal was clinging to the underside of the front bumper. Eisenthal was killed as Khatib drove away, while three more teenagers were wounded.
Two other Palestinian bus drivers, neither of whom have spoken publicly, were attacked that night. One, driving Superbus line 516 through the neighborhood of Bayit VeGan, reported protesters throwing objects at his bus before boarding and then beating him so severely that he required medical evacuation. The second, driving line 77 close to where Eisenthal was killed, reported teenagers discharging a fire extinguisher directly at him, almost suffocating him.
Khatib, a resident of East Jerusalem, was released from house arrest this week but faces charges of negligent homicide (ultra-Orthodox members of Knesset unsuccessfully campaigned for an aggravated murder charge). “If Khatib had known that someone was clinging to the bus, he would not have driven another meter,” his lawyer told Haaretz.
The case has thrust renewed attention onto a phenomenon that bus drivers and labor unions have been grappling with for years. In 2014, a year punctuated by a devastating Israeli military assault on Gaza, one in every three Jerusalem bus drivers quit their jobs amid escalating violence that peaked when driver Yousef Hassan Al-Ramouni was found hanged in his bus (Israeli officials ruled his death a suicide, but many drivers believed Al-Ramouni had been murdered).
In 2017, there were 18 reported cases of assaults against bus drivers across Israel and the West Bank — roughly one to two per month. Violent incidents further spiked during the COVID-19 pandemic as those who refused to wear masks retaliated against bus drivers, while a group of ultra-Orthodox men torched a bus and beat a driver in protest of the government-enforced lockdown.
But according to Koach LaOvdim (“Power to the Workers”), a trade union that has represented bus drivers since 2015 and now organizes roughly one-third of drivers nationwide, violence has surged to unprecedented levels over the past two years in a climate shaped by the aftermath of October 7 and Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
Charlotte Ritz-Jack is the Editorial Fellow at +972 Magazine based in Jerusalem. She graduated from Harvard College in the spring of 2025.
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