Israel buries dead after Jewish pilgrim stampede kills 45

JERUSALEM: Israel on Friday was burying victims of a stampede at a Jewish pilgrimage site that killed at least 45 people, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised an investigation into one of the nation’s "worst disasters".

The night-time carnage struck after pilgrims thronged to Meron at the site of the reputed tomb of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai, a second-century Talmudic sage, where mainly ultra-Orthodox Jews, or haredim, mark the Lag BaOmer holiday.

The health ministry put the toll at 45 dead. The Magen David Adom rescue agency said an estimated 150 had been injured. With families anxious to bury loved ones before the Shabbat break, funerals were held in Jerusalem and the mainly ultra-Orthodox city of Bnei Brak, where haredi men in traditional long black coats lined the streets to mourn. Shalom Levy, attending a funeral at a Jerusalem cemetery, called the stampede "a tragedy for the Jewish people".

The pilgrimage was the largest public gathering in Israel and possibly the world since the COVID-19 pandemic erupted early last year.

Officials had warned overcrowding could fuel viral spread and only authorised 10,000 to attend the tomb compound. Israeli media outlets said 90,000 massed at the site, a figure that could not be immediately confirmed from official sources.

There were conflicting reports about what caused the deadly crush, but multiple witnesses said scores of people trampled each other as they moved through a narrow passage at the site.

Some witnesses blamed police for not allowing people to exit through a ramp that could have allowed them to escape the crush. The police "closed it (the ramp). Then, more people arrived, and more and more... and police wouldn´t let them exit, so people started to fall on top of each other", Shmuel, 18, told AFP. There were also indications that pilgrims sought to burst through iron sheet barricades as the choke-point formed.