Dozens Die in Israel in Stampede at Sage's Grave
Voice of America
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.A TV screen shows a file image of North Korea's rocket launch during a news program at a bus terminal in Seoul, South Korea, May 27, 2024. FILE - Japanese Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi speaks to reporters in Colombo, July 29, 2023. FILE - A TV screen shows a report of North Korea's spy satellite into orbit with its third launch attempt this year with an image of North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un during a news program at the Seoul Railway Station in Seoul, South Korea, Nov. 22, 2023.
Palestinians gather at the site of an Israeli strike on a camp for internally displaced people in Rafah on May 27, 2024. Fire rages following an Israeli strike on an area designated for displaced Palestinians, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, in this still picture taken from a video, May 26, 2024. Palestinians gather at the site of an Israeli strike on a camp for internally displaced people in Rafah on May 27, 2024. A member of the bomb squad of the Israeli police collects debris after a rocket fired by Palestinian militants struck in the Israeli city of Herzliya on May 26, 2024.