Forty-four Arab citizens of Israel who were hurt in a bus crash in Sinai four years ago petitioned the High Court Wednesday in a request to be recognized as terror victims.
The crash occurred August 22, 2006, when they were in an Egyptian bus traveling from Sharm A-Sheikh to Eilat. Thirteen people were killed, including 11 Arab citizens of Israel. The Egyptian driver, Ahmed Hanafi Abu El-Ala, was tried in an Egyptian court and found guilty of causing death through negligence. He was sentenced to one year in jail.
The petitioners claim that the driver “intentionally caused the bus to veer off course and overturn on the downhill slope, yet managed to jump off the bus in time, in a manner coordinated with his friends, who awaited him at the spot and drove away.” They initially filed a lawsuit against the Ministry of Defense, demanding compensation for the damage and suffering caused them by the crash. A district court rejected their claim, and found they had not proven beyond a doubt that the crash was indeed not an accident.
The Egyptian driver was “a terrorist, who carried out a terror act, that was maliciously planned well ahead of time in order to hurt and kill Israeli citizens, mainly Arabs, whom the Egyptian hate more than they hate Jews,” the petitioners explained
One of the passengers testified that he heard the driver say “Allah Akbar” before steering the bus into a chasm. Other passengers said the driver called them “spies and collaborators of Israel against the Arabs.”