A violent incident on public transportation near Jerusalem's Gilo neighborhood has left approximately 15 bus passengers injured, some requiring hospitalization, according to the legal advocacy organization Chonenu.
The incident occurred this week on bus line 531 traveling to Gilo, when a public transit inspector allegedly deployed pepper spray inside the closed vehicle. Attorney Chaim Bleicher from Chonenu's crime victims department, representing several injured passengers, has sent an urgent letter to police demanding the inspector's arrest and prosecution.
Video footage recorded by a passenger shows the inspector confronting several riders before physically attacking one passenger with punches to the face, then spraying what appears to be pepper gas throughout the bus interior.
In his letter to police, Bleicher described the sequence of events: The inspector, he wrote, began by verbally abusing a passenger with an apparent mental disability, using profanity and degrading language. When other passengers attempted to defend the vulnerable individual and began recording the confrontation, the inspector allegedly escalated to physical violence, punching a passenger named Alon in the face, breaking his glasses and causing bleeding and injuries.
According to the complaint, when another passenger tried to restrain the inspector to stop the assault, the official pulled out a canister of high-concentration pepper spray and aimed it directly at passengers' faces and eyes, releasing a large quantity of the chemical agent in the confined, crowded space.
Among those affected was a five-month-old infant. "As a result of the poisoning of the bus's air with gas, the infant choked, his face turned completely red, and he experienced severe respiratory distress accompanied by crying and anxiety that continues to this day," Bleicher wrote. The baby's parents suffered burns and severe irritation to their eyes, face, neck and hands. The mother experienced a severe panic attack due to the immediate danger to her infant son's life. Other passengers, including children, were similalry affected. Some required medical treatment and several were evacuated to Shaare Zedek Hospital. In total, 15 people were injured as a result of the inspector's actions, according to the complaint.
Bleicher concluded his letter by demanding a full investigation and the inspector's detention: "An incident in which a public transit inspector attacks passengers with fists and gas, while a bus driver locks passengers inside the choking zone, is an act of civilian terror that cannot be allowed to pass without consequence. We request that the suspect inspector be detained until the conclusion of proceedings, that the investigation be thorough, and that the inspector be charged with mass violent assault causing injuries, with the aggravating circumstance of using gas."
