A Palestinian bus driver from occupied Jerusalem was assaulted late Thursday night by a group of Israelis at the central bus station in Rishon LeZion, south of Tel Aviv.
The driver, Emad al‑Khatib, said he had just finished his shift and entered the drivers’ facilities before heading home, Al-Jazeera said in a report quoting Israel’s daily Haaretz.
As he stepped out of the restroom, several Israelis confronted him and struck him in the face, knocking him unconscious.
When he regained consciousness, he found himself inside an ambulance on the way to the hospital, where doctors informed him he had sustained multiple fractures to his nose.
Al‑Khatib said a station security guard intervened and called emergency services, but he expressed little confidence that the attackers would be held accountable.
آثار اعتداء مستوطنين على الشاب المقدسي عماد الخطيب أثناء عمله في محطة حافلات في منطقة ريشون لتسيون قرب تل أبيب#ألبوم pic.twitter.com/n0czvvarzm
— الجزيرة – قدس (@Aljazeeraquds) May 22, 2026
He attempted to file a complaint with Israeli police, but officers postponed the process, citing an upcoming Jewish holiday.
“They don’t want Arabs in Israeli areas,” he said, adding that he intends to continue working and living in Jerusalem despite repeated assaults and threats.
Palestinians in occupied Jerusalem, especially younger workers, often have limited employment opportunities due to the city’s political and economic restrictions. Many rely on jobs within the Israeli transportation sector, where they constitute nearly 80 percent of bus drivers.
The attack reflects a growing pattern of violence targeting Palestinian workers employed inside Israel, particularly Jerusalemite bus drivers who make up the majority of the public transportation workforce in the city.
The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that more than 100 attacks were documented against Palestinian bus drivers from occupied Jerusalem between January and November 2025.
Haaretz added that Palestinian Jerusalemite drivers are attacked at a rate of roughly two times per week, underscoring a pattern of violence that has intensified in recent years.
Violence has also targeted pedestrians. In May 2025, 30‑year‑old Fuad Elian from the Jerusalem neighborhood of Beit Safafa was killed when an Israeli driver deliberately rammed him and his cousin while they were walking in a park in the depopulated Qatamon area of West Jerusalem.
Witnesses said the assailants had earlier demanded that the two men leave the area “because they were Arabs.”
The attack revived painful memories for many Jerusalemites, recalling the kidnapping and killing of 16‑year‑old Mohammad Abu Khdeir in July 2014, when Israeli attackers abducted him, tortured him, and burned him alive before dumping his body in the forests of the depopulated village of Deir Yassin.
Daily harassment—including spitting, pepper‑spray assaults, and verbal abuse—remains widespread in neighborhoods where Israeli authorities have implanted colonizer outposts, particularly in the Old City, Silwan to the south, and Sheikh Jarrah to the north.
Residents say these attacks occur with near‑total impunity, reinforcing fears that violence against Palestinians has become an entrenched feature of life in occupied Jerusalem.
