Sunday, March 2, 2025, 12:21 In June 2024, an Arab bus driver working for the Kavim Public Transportation Company viciously attacked a Hareidi passenger near the Bar Ilan Junction (see video below). The driver was arrested and prosecuted. The Tel Aviv Police Prosecution Department indicted the driver for assault causing actual injury and malicious vandalism. However, they reached a plea bargain with him at the Tel Aviv Magistrates Court, and he was sentenced to only four months’ community service. The Tel Aviv Police Prosecution Department reached the plea bargain without notifying either the victim or Honenu Attorney Chayim Bleicher, who is representing him.
The incident began when the passenger, the complainant, pressed the ‘stop’ button to get off at the Mesubim Junction, but the driver, the defendant, passed it. Because the dashboard still indicated a ‘stop’ request, the driver proceeded to the next stop, Bar Ilan Junction, and waited for a passenger to disembark. However, the passenger preferred to wait until a different stop. Then the driver announced that he would not continue until someone told him who pressed the ‘stop’ button. After a time, during which the driver remained in place, the Jewish passenger explained that he had pressed the button for the previous stop.
The indictment further describes the brutal attack: “After the passenger signaled to the driver that it was he who had pressed the button, the driver assaulted him by throwing a cup of coffee at him. After an exchange of words between the sides, and a demand by the defendant that the complainant ‘apologize to Allah,’ the driver approached the passenger, punched him in the face and body, choked him and poked him in the eyes. The acts described above constitute assault, caused the complainant actual injury, and caused malicious vandalism of his property.”
Attorney Bleicher leveled criticism at the prosecution and said: “The bus driver brutally beat a passenger in a shocking attack that lasted for quite some time. The passenger did not behave in any way inappropriately with the driver, who tried to use religious coercion on him. This extreme incident closely resembled a terror attack. It is inexplicable for the assailant to serve community service and then be free to endanger the public. He should serve a long prison sentence far from the public.
Unfortunately, despite our request to the Police Prosecution Department to update us and not to examine a plea bargain without consulting with us, we were not informed of anything. It is a shame that the prosecution did not consider the victim when they agreed to the lenient plea bargain. And it is a shame that the court is allowing this assailant to continue endangering Israeli citizens.”
Hareidi man attacked on bus; Video credit: Social media