Stone throwing rampant
Photo: AP
In the past two months cars driving on Negev highways have become a target for Bedouin youths. On Wednesday night youths threw stones at a bus belonging to the "Metropolin" bus company causing serious damages, and the company said it wouldn't let the incident slide and would file a damage complaint.
The bus was driving from Beer Sheba towards the small community of Meitar in the Negev. Two Bedouin youths hurled stones towards the bus, breaking its windshield and lightly wounding two passengers. Local police arrested the suspects, and on Thursday they had a remand hearing at the Beer Sheba District Court.
Metropolin's CEO, Ilan Karni, told Ynet that his company planned to press charges against the youths for the damages done to the bus.
"We're doing this to deter the other youths throwing stones. Maybe this way their parents will understand that they have to pay for their kids deeds and they'll put a stop the stone-throwing," Karni explained.
A local resident told Ynet that the stone-throwing phenomenon isn't rare at all. "Every month I hear complaints about stones being thrown at cars driving on the street," the resident said.
Not just Beer Sheba
Dimona residents reported similar phenomena on the roads leading up to their town. Stones are frequently thrown, and sometimes the roads are blocked with piled up rocks, they said.Dimona municipality official Marina Vaknin told Ynet, "I'm afraid to drive at night on the roads. If I have something to do outside of town at night, sometimes I consider not going. This situation is intolerable. This is truly a life-threatening situation."
Police said that it viewed stone-throwing severely and was acting on both the law enforcement and preventative levels.
Police added that recently there had been a reduction in stone-throwing incidents.