44 KILLED AND HUNDREDS HURT IN STAMPEDE DURING LAG BAOMER FESTIVAL AT MOUNT MERON IN ISRAEL

A stampede at a religious festival attended by tens of thousands of ultra-Orthodox Jews in northern Israel killed at least 45 people and injured about 150 early Friday, medical officials said. It was one of the country’s deadliest civilian disasters.

The stampede began when large numbers of people thronged a narrow tunnel-like passage during the event, according to witnesses and video footage. People began falling on top of each other near the end of the walkway, as they descended slippery metal stairs, witnesses said.

One of the injured, Avraham Leibe, told Israeli public broadcaster Kan that a crush of people trying to descend the mountain caused a “general bedlam” on a slippery metal slope followed by stairs. “Nobody managed to halt,” he said from a hospital bed. “I saw one after the other fall.”

Video footage showed large numbers of people, most of them black-clad ultra-Orthodox men, squeezed in the tunnel. Initial reports and witnesses said police barricades had prevented people from exiting quickly.

The stampede occurred during the celebrations of Lag BaOmer at Mount Meron, the first mass religious gathering to be held legally since Israel lifted nearly all restrictions related to the coronavirus pandemic. The country has seen cases plummet since launching one of the world’s most successful vaccination campaigns late last year.

Lag BaOmer draws tens of thousands of people, most of them ultra-Orthodox Jews, each year to honor Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai, a 2nd century sage and mystic who is believed to be buried there. Large crowds traditionally light bonfires, pray and dance as part of the celebrations.

This year, media estimated the crowd at about 100,000 people.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who briefly visited Mount Meron around midday Friday, said it was “one of the worst disasters that has befallen the state of Israel” and offered condolences to the families. He said Sunday would be a day of national mourning.

Mr Netanyahu was jeered by dozens of ultra-Orthodox protesters, who blamed the government and police for the tragedy.

Closed last year due to coronavirus restrictions, this year’s pilgrimage was expected to be a celebratory event in a nation that has largely re-opened thanks to a successful vaccination effort.

It had been “a tragic night,” Shimon Lavi, northern Israel’s police commander, told AFP, adding his officers did all they could to save lives, helping to ferry the injured to hospital.

The pilgrimage was the largest public gathering since the pandemic broke out, with reports of three times more participants, including children, than authorised by police.

Initial reports indicated the carnage began when a section of stadium seating collapsed but rescue workers later linked the casualties to a stampede.

A spokesman for the Magen David Adom, Israel’s rescue service, told AFP “there were 38 dead at the scene but there were more at the hospital.”

A source at the northern Ziv hospital, one of several receiving casualties, told AFP it had recorded at least six deaths, taking the overall toll to 44.

The rescue service said it was treating 150 injured, six of them in serious condition.

“They crushed each other”

“It was chaos as people tried to save themselves but they crushed each other,” Dov Maisel of the United Hatzala rescue services told army radio.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called it a “heavy disaster” and said he was praying for the injured.

“The whole of Israel is praying for the recovery of the survivors,” said opposition leader Yair Lapid.

The army and emergency services deployed helicopters to evacuate the wounded.

Scenes from Meron hours after the accident showed an ultra-Orthodox Jewish crowd in distress, with debris scattered across the ground.

Some survivors had lit candles for the victims while other prayed nearby. Israeli media published an image of a row of bodies covered in plastic bags on the ground.

“Terrible disaster”

“This is one of the worst tragedies that I have ever experienced,” said Lazar Hyman of the United Hatzalah volunteer rescue service, who was at the scene.

“I have not seen anything like this since I entered into the field of emergency medicine,” he added.

Yehuda Gottleib, one of the first responders from United Hatzalah, said he saw “dozens of people fall on top of one another during the collapse”.

“A large number of them were crushed and lost consciousness.”

Israel has fully vaccinated more than half of its 9.3 million population against the coronavirus, but restrictions on massive public gatherings remain in place to stem the spread of the virus.

Authorities had authorised 10,000 people to gather at the site of the tomb but organisers said more than 650 buses had been chartered from across Israel, bringing 30,000 pilgrims to Meron.

Ultra-Orthodox Jews, known in Israel as haredim, have throughout the pandemic shown resistance towards health and safety measures mandated by the government.

Around 5,000 police had been deployed to secure the event.

After the stampede, police closed access to the area to prevent a crowd from building further, while rescue workers and security forces worked to clear the area and identify the victims.

Velvel Brevda, a rabbi who witnessed the stampede, accused police of putting up barriers that had prevented people from leaving through exits that were usually open in past years.

“Where should we leave from?” he said. “And the officers who were there couldn’t care less.”

He said the government was responsible for the deaths of “beautiful holy Jews that were killed here for no reason whatsoever, just to prove a point that they’re in charge of this place instead of the Orthodox Jews being in charge.”

At least 45 people were killed, according to the Israeli Health Ministry, with four people remaining in critical condition. In the immediate aftermath of the stampede, rescue workers collected the bodies, wrapped them in white covers and laid them side by side on the ground at the site.

Bodies were later taken to Israel’s central forensic pathology institute for identification.

Efforts were still under way to identify some of the victims and connect families with missing relatives. In the night from Thursday to Friday, cell phone coverage around Mount Meron had collapsed for hours and emergency hotlines were overwhelmed with phone calls.

In the overwhelmingly ultra-Orthodox city of Bnei Brak, near Tel Aviv, officials were working with healthcare workers to connect the families of the missing. “The picture is slowly becoming clearer,” Kivi Hess, a municipal spokesman, told Channel 13 TV.

In a race against time, a number of funerals were to be held before sundown Friday, the start of the Jewish Sabbath when burials do not take place. The country’s figurehead president, Reuven Rivlin, lit 45 memorial candles to honor the dead.

The death toll at Mount Meron exceeded the 44 people killed in a 2010 forest fire. That had previously been believed to be the deadliest civilian tragedy in the country’s history.

Zaki Heller, spokesman for the Magen David Adom rescue service, said 150 people had been hurt in the stampede.

Mr Heller told Israel Army Radio that “no one had ever dreamed” something like this could happen. “In one moment, we went from a happy event to an immense tragedy,” he said.

The Justice Ministry said the police’s internal investigations department was launching a probe into possible criminal misconduct by officers.

The deadly stampede was also bound to have political reverberations at a time of great uncertainty following an inconclusive March election, the fourth in two years.

Mr Netanyahu has so far been unsuccessful in forming a governing coalition, and his time for doing so runs out early next week. His political rivals, including former allies bent on ending his 12-year rule, will then get a chance to try to cobble together an alliance from a patchwork of left-wing, centrist and hawkish parties.

Netanyahu needs the continued support of ultra-Orthodox parties, his long-time allies, if he wants to keep faint hopes alive of staying in power.

Israeli media reported Friday that earlier this month, Mr Netanyahu assured ultra-Orthodox politicians in a meeting that the Lag BaOmer celebrations would take place with few limitations.

The reports said this decision was supported by Cabinet ministers and police, despite objections by health officials who warned of a risk of renewed coronavirus infections.

Last year, observances on Mount Meron were limited due to the pandemic.

At the start of this year’s celebrations, Public Security Minister Amir Ohana, police chief Yaakov Shabtai and other top officials visited the event and met with police, who had deployed 5,000 extra forces to maintain order.

Condolences were sent by foreign leaders and diplomats, including the U.S. charge d’affaires. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson wrote on Twitter that his “thoughts are with the Israeli people and those who have lost loved ones in this tragedy.”

The European Union conveyed “deepest condolences to families and friends of the victims” and wished a speedy recovery to the injured. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said his country stands by Israel after the “terrifying news from Mount Meron.”

Photo credits – Reuters/ JINI photo Agency Ltd