The driver
Photo: Eran Yuppy Cohen
70 Palestinians caught crammed into refrigeration truck
Border Guard officers order truck driver to pull over for routine inspection, find he was transporting dozens of illegal Palestinian aliens
Seventy illegal Palestinian aliens were apprehended Sunday, during routine Border Guard operations. The man transporting them, a resident of the Jerusalem-adjacent Israeli-Arab town Abu Gosh, was also apprehended.
The men were caught after Border Guard officers performing routine vehicle inspection on Highway 6 ordered the driver, manning the wheel of a refrigeration truck, to pull over. When the officers opened the back of the truck, they found dozens of illegal aliens crammed into it.
"We honestly didn’t expect to find this many people in the truck," Border Guard Chief-Inspector Yossi Frienti told Ynet. "It was an inhumane sight, unfortunately. Animals shouldn’t be transported like that, let alone people."
The passengers, he added, rallied to the driver's defense, saying he was simply "giving them a lift."
An initial investigation revealed that the Palestinians boarded the truck in the northern Jerusalem Shufat neighborhood, en route to Wadi Ara. The driver was to be paid a fee of NIS 250-300 (roughly $65-$80) for each passenger.
The Palestinians were returned to Palestinian Authority territory.
