It is a tragic toll coming from Israel where at least 44 people died trampled by the crowd and another 150 were injured during a religious gathering in Mount Meron, in the Upper Galilee region. It is here that hundreds of people gathered on Thursday for the Lag B’Omer festival and that at the end of the event they poured towards the exit creating a river of people: the cause of the accident is not yet clear but it seems both during the exit and due to a slippery pavement, several people who were walking the walkway fell causing others to fall and then were crushed by the other pilgrims arriving.
Rescuers rushed to the scene but were unable to do anything for at least 44 of the injured, while the others were transported to nearby hospitals due to their injuries. According to what is learned, there are also several children among the victims. The crowd of thousands were attending the annual gathering in northern Galilee to pray at the tomb of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yohai, a 2nd century AD mystic and sage. “There were dozens of people trapped in a nearby grandstand and it took some time. time to evacuate them, “said Magen spokesman David Adom, Zaki Heller.
Shortly after the news, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also spoke and spoke of the incident as a “terrible disaster” while Magen David Adom reported that more than 150 people for whom the rescue teams have intervened: the rescue service reports that six helicopters and dozens of ambulances are evacuating the injured to Safed’s Ziv hospital, Nahariya’s Galilee Medical Center, Haifa’s Rambam hospital, Poriya hospital in Tiberias and Hadassah Ein Kerem hospital in Jerusalem .