A civil lawsuit for 220,000 shekels has been filed against an Arab bus driver who sprayed a group of ultra-Orthodox youths while traveling in Jerusalem two years ago, claiming that they "smelled.".
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The boys filed a complaint against the driver, but the case was closed. The Honenu organization filed an appeal against the police decision, but it was also rejected.
In the lawsuit, Attorney Haim Bleicher describes the incident: "On June 16, 2023, the plaintiffs were racially attacked and humiliated by the defendant, an Egged bus driver.
""The plaintiffs, who were 14 and 15 years old, and their two friends boarded Egged bus line 19. The plaintiffs, who have a traditional Jewish appearance with wigs on the sides of their heads, sat on the double bench at the front of the bus with two other friends, with another empty bench between them and the defendant.
""The plaintiffs sat in their seats politely and quietly. At one point, when the bus passed near the Pat junction, the defendant stopped the bus at one of the stops and ordered the plaintiffs and their friends to move to the back of the bus, looking at them with disgust - and calling them "stinky", and threatening that if they did not do so, he would spray perfume on them.
""The plaintiffs asked the driver why he was reversing them, at which point the defendant took out a spray of perfume or air freshener and began spraying their bodies and faces from a short distance, one by one, from the spray. In his actions described above, the defendant unlawfully attacked people for racial reasons and also published a 'slanderous' advertisement against the plaintiffs.".
Attorney Bleicher: "The lawsuit describes an ugly anti-Semitic incident against children. This is doubly serious when it involves a bus driver who is responsible for the safety and security of hundreds of citizens every day. Unfortunately, the law enforcement authorities did not want to respond to the incident on the criminal level, and we are making an effort, at least on the civil level, to compensate the boys for the great mental anguish they suffered, and to act as a deterrent against these acts of anti-Semitism.".
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