Israel pilgrimage crush inquiry into 45 deaths at Mount Meron urges future cap on visitor numbers
- Pilgrims can be bused in on tickets valid for specific hours; food advised against to reduce stay and ‘danger of falling, slipping on garbage’
- PM Naftali Bennett’s government signals it will implement findings; April disaster happened under previous government of Benjamin Netanyahu
The panel, headed by a former Supreme Court chief justice, submitted interim findings on Monday designed to help authorities better plan for the next festival at Mount Meron, the Galilee tomb of second-century sage Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai, in May.
Before the pandemic, the annual commemorations could draw as many as 200,000 worshippers for all-night prayer, mystical songs, picnics and dance around bonfires.
Tens of thousands came on April 30 this year to the hilltop pilgrimage site, which covers about 2.26 hectares (5.6 acres). When a crowd surged into a narrow tunnel, 45 men and boys were asphyxiated or trampled to death.
“The material brought before the commission and testimonies heard by it indicate that the maximal number of people that could be safely contained at the area at the same time is approximately 20,000,” the panel said in a 16-page report.
It said more space could be freed up by banning tents and ‘pirate’ vendors at the site and by holding one central bonfire ceremony.
Pilgrims could be encouraged to rotate by busing them in and out on tickets valid for specific hours, the panel said. It advised against allowing in food to “reduce the duration of stay (and) the danger of falling and slipping on garbage”.
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Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s government signalled it would implement the findings.
“The 2022 observances at Meron will be entirely different from the observances held heretofore, and will take place according to other safety standards,” said Religious Affairs Minister Matan Kahana in a statement.
The panel is separately looking at possible culpability among planners of the April observances, which took place under the previous government of Benjamin Netanyahu.
