JERUSALEM: What began as an ordinary shift for Jerusalem bus driver Fakhri Khatib 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.
Palestinian women wait for a bus at a stop near Israel's controversial separation barrier in the Dahiat al-Barit suburb of east Jerusalem on February 15, 2026. (AFP)
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.
