AFP — What began as an ordinary shift for Jerusalem bus driver Fakhri Khatib last month ended hours later in tragedy.

A chaotic spiral of events, symptomatic of a surge in racist violence targeting Arab bus drivers in Israel, led to the death of a teenager, Khatib’s arrest and calls for him to be charged with aggravated murder.

His case is an extreme one, but it sheds light on a trend bus drivers have been grappling with for years, with a union counting scores of assaults in Jerusalem alone and advocates lamenting what they describe as an anaemic police response.

One evening in early January, Khatib found his bus surrounded as he drove near the route of a protest by Israel’s ultra-Orthodox Jewish community.

“People began running towards me and shouting at me, ‘Arab, Arab!'” recalled Khatib, who lives in East Jerusalem.

“They were cursing at me and spitting on me, I became very afraid,” he told AFP.

Khatib said he called the police, fearing for his life after seeing soaring numbers of attacks against bus drivers in recent months.

But when no police arrived after a few minutes, Khatib says he decided to drive off to escape the crowd, unaware that 14-year-old Yosef Eisenthal was holding onto his front bumper.

The Jewish teenager was killed in the incident and Khatib was arrested.

Police initially sought charges of aggravated murder but later downgraded them to negligent homicide.

Khatib was released from house arrest in mid-January........

© The Times of Israel