Dozens Die in Israel in Stampede at Sage's Grave

MOUNT MERON, ISRAEL - Dozens of people were crushed to death in a crowd at a religious bonfire festival in Israel on Friday, medics said, in what Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described as a "heavy disaster."

The crush occurred as tens of thousands of ultra-Orthodox Jews thronged to the Galilee tomb of 2nd-century sage Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai for annual Lag B'Omer commemorations that include all-night prayer, mystical songs and dance. Witnesses said people were asphyxiated or trampled in a tightly packed passageway, some going unnoticed until the public address system sounded an appeal to disperse, as crowds packed the Mount Meron slope in defiance of COVID-19 warnings. Helicopters had ferried injured people to hospitals in northern Israel, the Magen David Adom (MDA) ambulance service said. The Israeli military said search and rescue troops and medical teams were scrambled.