Israel orders inquiry into deadly Mount Meron stampede

The stampede in April killed 45 people at a Jewish pilgrimage site long deemed hazardous by the authorities.

Israel’s new government has approved an official inquiry into a stampede in April which killed 45 people and injured dozens at a Jewish pilgrimage site long deemed dangerously crowded by authorities. Though it was the country’s worst civilian disaster, a full-scale investigation into the Mount Meron deaths lagged under the previous government amid feuding between its ultra-Orthodox Jewish and opposition politicians. “The responsibility for learning the lessons and preventing the next disaster is on our shoulders,” Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said on Sunday at his first cabinet meeting.