Harrowing video shows worshippers desperately trying to escape a stampede that left 44 dead and more than 150 injured at an overcrowded religious festival in Israel.
Footage shows chaos and captures panicked screams as Lag B’Omer bonfire festivalgoers are caught in a crush in a tightly packed walkway, where victims were asphyxiated or trampled.
Small children were reported to be among the dead as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described the tragedy as a “heavy disaster”.
Videos showed Ultra-Orthodox men clambering through gaps in sheets of torn corrugated iron to escape the crush. Later, bodies lay on stretchers in a corridor, covered in foil blankets.
The huge gathering of ultra-Orthodox Jewish worshippers at Mount Meron in northern Israel was the largest in Israel since the start of the coronavirus pandemic and it had already sparked health and safety warnings.
Police said they were unable to enforce Covid-19 restrictions due to the size of the crowd, which numbered in the tens of thousands.
It was one of the deadliest peacetime tragedies in Israel’s history.
In the early hours of Friday morning, worshippers flocked to the Galilee tomb of 2nd-century sage Rabbi Shim Bar Yochai for annual Lag B’Omer commemorations which include all-night prayer, mystical songs and dance.
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The stampede occurred as attendees left the Meron compound through a narrow bottleneck, which is the only exit.
There had been warnings since at least 2018 that a deadly stampede could occur during the annual mass gathering due to the bottleneck, the Times of Israel reported.
Witness Shlomo Katz, 36, told Reuters: “We were going to go inside for the dancing and stuff and all of a sudden we saw paramedics from (ambulance service) MDA running by, like mid-CPR on kids.”
A pilgrim named Yitzhak told Channel 12 TV: “We thought maybe there was a (bomb) alert over a suspicious package.
(Image: United Hatzalah/AFP via Getty Im)
“No one imagined that this could happen here. Rejoicing became mourning, a great light became a deep darkness.
“Rabbi Shimon used to say that he could absolve the world … If he didn’t manage to cancel this edict on the very day of his exaltation, then we need to do real soul-searching.”
Many worshippers were unaware of the unfolding tragedy until a PA announcement.
Police shut down the site and ordered revellers out.
(Image: REUTERS)
Rescue workers collapsed against railings and wept after clearing the site.
The site is mostly gender-segregated and the crush took place in the men’s section.
A police official told the Times of Israel dozens of worshippers had “slipped” while walking along the packed walkway, causing a crushing domino effect.
A commander who oversaw security arrangements took responsibility.
Shimon Lavi told reporters: “I bear overall responsibility, for better or worse, and am ready for any investigation.”
Bonfire areas were partitioned-off as a Covid-19 precaution and that may have created unexpected choke-points on foot traffic, Israeli media said.
Mr Netanyahu tweeted: “We are all praying for the wellbeing of the casualties.”
The Mount Meron tomb is considered to be one of the holiest sites in the Jewish world and it is an annual pilgrimage site.
Private bonfires at Mount Meron were banned last year due to coronavirus restrictions, but lockdown measures were eased this year amid Israel’s rapid Covid-19 vaccination programme that has seen more than 54 per cent of the population fully vaccinated.