A teenage boy was killed and three others were injured on Tuesday after a bus drove into Haredi protesters, as tens of thousands attended an anti-conscription demonstration in Jerusalem.

The victim, who was dragged under the bus at an intersection in the city’s ultra-Orthodox neighborhood of Romema, was identified as Yosef Eisenthal, 14, a resident of Jerusalem’s Ramot neighborhood.

Another three people, all teenagers, were lightly injured, medics said.

The bus driver was detained at the scene and police said a preliminary investigation found that he had been attacked by rioters who were blocking the road before the deadly incident.

The rally, which was the initiative of a group of leading ultra-Orthodox rabbis, opened with fiery speeches and descended into chaos as the evening wore on, with protesters setting several fires in the middle of the neighborhood’s Yirmiyahu Street, and blocking the intersection with Shamgar Street.

Authorities said the bus hit three protesters on Shamgar Street at around 9 p.m. before continuing for several hundred meters to Ohel Yehoshua Street, where it hit another pedestrian.

Graphic video from the scene showed the bus driving through the intersection, where protesters had lit a fire in the road, and person can be seen being dragged underneath the vehicle as bystanders scream.

A Times of Israel correspondent witnessed emergency responders attempting to extricate a person from under the bus on Ohel Yehoshua Street.

Witnesses who spoke to The Times of Israel at the scene of the ramming, only meters from a burning dumpster, reported that the young men had attempted to block traffic.

MDA Emergency Medical Technician Eli Eisenbach said the victim was “trapped under the bus” and declared dead at the scene.

The bus was a regular city bus operated by Extra, which runs routes between Haredi neighborhoods in the capital.

The bus driver was subsequently detained and taken for questioning to determine “the circumstances of the incident,” with police saying that he told investigators that he had been attacked by rioters during the rowdy protest.

“The Israel Police stresses that violent rioting, blocking traffic arteries and attacking vehicles cross a red line, endanger lives and could end in great tragedy,” said a police statement.

Hebrew media outlets reported that the driver had called the emergency police hotline to request help as protesters gathered around his bus, accosting him and preventing him from driving, which video first published by Channel 14 appeared to show.

The response from protesters at the scene initially appeared to be one of shock, although several resumed shouting at police officers, calling them “Nazis,” while others started, and then........

© The Times of Israel