Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu has called for calm after a 14-year-old ultra-Orthodox boy was killed when a bus driven by a Palestinian driver crushed and killed him during a large protest against government attempts to draft religious seminary students into the army.
Mr Netanyahu issued a statement early on Wednesday, urging “restraint to prevent the mood from becoming further inflamed so that, heaven forbid, we do not have additional tragedies”.
He also pledged a thorough investigation into the death of Yosef Eisenthal during the Jerusalem protest on Tuesday night, organised by militant ultra-Orthodox Haredi, or God-fearing in Hebrew, groups opposed to the military draft.
Video footage showed dozens of Haredi protesters surrounding the bus before the incident, banging on it, spitting at the driver and shouting insults.
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“He saw he had no way out, drove into the ultra-Orthodox protesters and ran us over,” one eyewitness said. “I was thrown aside, and there were three others under the bus. He then turned on to another street and hit more people.”
Another video clip showed a teenage boy clinging to the front of the bus as it drove, before falling and rolling on to the road. Three other Haredi protesters had minor injuries.
The driver, who has no criminal record, called the police emergency hotline to request assistance before running over the victim. His lawyer claimed he acted under pressure, fearing for his life after being attacked and was trying to flee the scene. He had no idea that he had hit the boy.
“It was only when I met him last night that he realised he had run over someone,” he said. “If he had known that someone was clinging to the bus, he would not have driven another meter.”
The Jerusalem magistrate’s court on Wednesday extended the detention of the driver by nine days. The police originally wanted to charge him with murder but amended the charges to negligent homicide.
Many bus drivers in Jerusalem are Arabs and racist attacks against bus drivers, often violent, are common. Despite the video footage, no one involved in the Tuesday night attack was arrested.
Some members of Mr Netanyahu’s government called the incident “a murder,” with Tally Gotliv, a politician from Mr Netanyahu’s Likud party, accusing the bus driver of carrying out “a clear terror attack”.
The incident came in advance of a critical meeting of rabbis from the ultra-Orthodox Agudat Yisrael faction of the United Torah Judaism party on Wednesday night, amid growing calls for the faction to quit the coalition in protest over the government’s failure to pass a Bill exempting the community from the military draft. Such a move would likely lead to early elections.
