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JERUSALEM (Ma'an) -- Two Israeli settlers attacked a Palestinian bus driver with pepper spray as they were leaving a bus at Sheikh Jarrah in occupied East Jerusalem on Monday evening.

The driver, Muhammad Husam Barakat, 38, works for the Israeli bus company, Kavim, and his route is from the illegal settlement of Beitar Illit to central Jerusalem.

He told Ma'an by telephone that two young settlers boarded his bus near Beitar Illit and stayed until the last stop in Sheikh Jarrah.

When they got out of the bus, they refused to pay and instead attacked the driver with pepper spray.

Barakat said that he managed to get out of the bus and received help from passersby who called the police.

The driver was taken to Hadassah Medical Center for treatment.

An Israeli police spokesperson could not be reached for comment.

Tensions have run high in occupied East Jerusalem in recent days, following clashes between Palestinian worshipers and Israeli police at the Al-Aqsa mosque compound.

According to Israeli rights group B'Tselem, Israeli settlers "have perpetrated various forms of violence against Palestinians in the occupied territories, damaging their lands, their persons and their property."

Israeli forces rarely make efforts to protect Palestinians from settler violence, and often, "rather than restricting violent settlers, Israeli security forces impose restrictions on the Palestinian," B'Tselem reports.

"The undeclared policy of the Israeli authorities in response to these attacks is lenient and conciliatory. Perpetrators are rarely tried, and many cases are not investigated at all or are closed with no operative conclusions."

Settlers have carried out 112 reported acts of violence in the occupied Palestinian territories including East Jerusalem so far this year, according to UN figures.

Of those, 39 were violent attacks against Palestinians, while 73 were property damage incidents.
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by IMEMC News

A number of Israeli extremists attacked, on Monday at night, a Palestinian bus driver, working for the Egged Bus Company, by spraying his face with pepper spray before beating him up, and tried to tie him to his seat.

The driver, Mohammad Barakat, 38 years of age, from the al-‘Ezariyya town in Jerusalem, said the attack was carried out by two Israelis who first used pepper spray before proceeding to assault him.

The two boarded the bus, and remained in it, until it reached its final station in the Ma’alot Dafna illegal settlement, west of Sheikh Jarrah, where they assaulted the Palestinian driver.

Barakat told the Wadi Hilweh Information Center in Silwan that the two assailants refused to pay for the tickets, remained in the bus for 45 minutes until it reached its final station, and ran away after assaulting him.

He then appealed to bystanders who called the police; the officers refused to take his statement, and told him he needed to head to their station in Salah Ed-Deen Street, to file an official complaint.

Earlier on Monday, undercover soldiers of the Israeli military kidnapped a young Palestinian man, identified as Ahmad ‘Asaleyya, from occupied East Jerusalem, after he intervened to help a woman who was being harassed by Israeli extremists near the Chain Gate in Jerusalem.