{"id":83385,"date":"2025-06-23T11:08:17","date_gmt":"2025-06-23T08:08:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jerusalem-online.co.il\/?p=83385"},"modified":"2025-06-22T16:26:03","modified_gmt":"2025-06-22T13:26:03","slug":"jerusalem-without-drivers-war-halts-the-buses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jerusalem-online.co.il\/en\/jerusalem-without-drivers-war-halts-the-buses\/","title":{"rendered":"Jerusalem without drivers \u2013 war halts the buses"},"content":{"rendered":"

The bus stop at Bar-Ilan Street was more crowded than usual. Dozens of men in black hats, mothers with strollers, children sweating in the heat.
But the bus never came<\/p>\n

Behind the delay lies a deeper reality: several Arab neighborhoods in East Jerusalem are under lockdown or severe movement restrictions due to the war with Iran
Many bus drivers from those areas cannot leave their homes \u2013 some due to security closures, others out of fear<\/p>\n

The waiting turns to anger<\/h3>\n

\u201cI waited nearly an hour and a half,\u201d says Shlomo M., a resident of Mea Shearim
\u201cAt first you think it\u2019s just a delay. Then another driver tells you: there are no replacements. The regular drivers are stuck at home. What kind of city is this?\u201d<\/p>\n

Similar scenes play out across Jerusalem. At one stop on line 74, thirty people stood waiting in the heat \u2013 no bus in sight<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m here with a baby in a stroller,\u201d says Lea R. \u201cThey say they\u2019re sending backup drivers, but it\u2019s a lie. Every few minutes the app cancels another route. This war is breaking Jerusalem.\u201d<\/p>\n

Driving becomes impossible<\/h3>\n

In Jerusalem, a large percentage of public transport drivers live in East Jerusalem
Even in calmer times, they face delays at checkpoints and social tension. During wartime? Some say it\u2019s not worth the risk<\/p>\n

(A Piano in Jerusalem Waits: Alon Ohel Still Missing<\/a>)<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t drive through West Jerusalem now,\u201d says a driver who asked to remain anonymous
\u201cIf people from my neighborhood see me behind the wheel, they\u2019ll say I\u2019m a traitor. My family begged me not to leave the house. Everyone\u2019s scared.\u201d<\/p>\n

Transportation companies remain silent, but internal sources estimate that up to 30%<\/strong> of regular drivers from East Jerusalem haven\u2019t shown up since the conflict escalated<\/p>\n

When buses stop \u2013 the city stops<\/h3>\n

Public transit in Israel was already fragile. Now, it\u2019s collapsing<\/p>\n

The ones who suffer are the poor, the elderly, students, working mothers \u2013 those who have no other way to move around.
And in Jerusalem, a city now caught in a regional war, the breakdown of daily routines is becoming its own kind of frontline.<\/p>\n

As one commuter put it:
\u201cIf the buses stop coming, is it still a city?\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Israel\u2013Iran conflict: blocked neighborhoods, absent drivers \u2013 and hundreds of stranded commuters<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":67,"featured_media":83386,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_titles_title":"Jerusalem without drivers \u2013 war halts the buses","_seopress_titles_desc":"Israel\u2013Iran conflict: blocked neighborhoods, absent drivers \u2013 and hundreds of stranded commuters","_seopress_robots_index":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[184],"tags":[8512],"class_list":{"0":"post-83385","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-184","8":"tag-east-jerusalem-en"},"acf":{"subtitle":"Israel\u2013Iran conflict: blocked neighborhoods, absent drivers \u2013 and hundreds of stranded commuters"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jerusalem-online.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83385","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jerusalem-online.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jerusalem-online.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jerusalem-online.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/67"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jerusalem-online.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=83385"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jerusalem-online.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83385\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jerusalem-online.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/83386"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jerusalem-online.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=83385"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jerusalem-online.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=83385"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jerusalem-online.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=83385"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}