JERUSALEM, November 17, 2014 (WAFA) – A Palestinian bus driver was late Sunday night found hanged to death inside a bus at a stop for the Israeli transport company Egged in West Jerusalem, amid conflicting reports the man was deliberately killed by Israeli fanatics.

The man, identified as Yusuf Hassan Rammouni, 32, a resident of the Jerusalem neighborhood of al-Tour who works as a bus driver with Egged Israel Transport Cooperative Society Ltd, was found hanged with a rope wrapped around his neck when coworkers arrived at the scene at a bus stop in West Jerusalem.

Colleague bus drivers said it was highly probable that Rammouni’s death was a deliberate crime committed by Israeli settlers, especially at a time of tension that has been on the rise in the city during the recent months.

WAFA correspondent said signs of violence were also apparent on Rammouni’s body.

Rammouni’s family ruled out claims by the Israeli Police that the incident was a suicide, maintaining eyewitnesses’ reports that he was hanged to death by Israeli settlers.

The apparent murder triggered clashes across the Palestinian neighborhoods of East Jerusalem amid calls for a general strike in the city and in nearby Abu Dis, where relatives of Rammouni live, in protest of his death.

Rammouni’s relatives gathered at Hadasa hospital were his body was brought and called for a forensic examination of his body.

The incident came just hours after a group of settlers assaulted a Palestinian man, identified as Tareq Dweik, 29, while he was on his way to work. Dweik sustained bruises in the hand and the leg and was transferred to hospital for medical treatment.

The latest escalation is believed to trigger more tension to an already growing unrest which started around five months ago, when Jewish extremists kidnapped teenager Mohammad Abu Khdeir, 17, from the Arab neighborhood of Shuafat and burned him alive till death.

M.N.