Truck Driver Charged After Fatal Clash at Nir Banim Gas Station

An indictment was filed Thursday morning against Michael Ben Shimon Cohen, a 55-year-old truck driver from Haifa, on a charge of negligent manslaughter in the death of 81-year-old Gabriel Kamin. According to the indictment, the two argued at a gas station near Nir Banim on June 5, where Kamin worked, and the dispute ended with Kamin being struck and killed by Cohen’s vehicle.

Investigators say the argument began inside the convenience store and continued outside. At some point, Cohen got back into his truck and started driving away while Kamin was standing near the vehicle and speaking with him. During the drive, Cohen hit the elderly worker, killing him at the scene.

Kamin’s daughter, Sivan Kamin Ofek, described her father as someone who was taken from his family “cruelly” in the middle of an ordinary workday. She said she is trying to understand “how to keep living inside such pain,” and called the case part of a wider social problem of normalization of violence, aggression, and lack of restraint. She also said the station reopened at 2:00 p.m. the same day, while her father’s blood was still on the floor, and questioned whether a large company owes ongoing support and protection to workers and families after such a tragedy.

Cohen has a heavy traffic record, including 65 prior traffic convictions. Police from the Kiryat Malakhi station and traffic investigators from the Lachish district say they arrived at the scene immediately, collected evidence, took witness statements, and built a sufficient evidentiary basis for the indictment.