MOUNT MERON, Israel — Demands for accountability after a disaster that left 45 people dead at a holy site in northern Israel mounted on Saturday as questions swirled concerning the culpability of the federal government, non secular leaders and the police.
The stampede on Mount Meron early Friday, certainly one of Israel’s worst civil disasters, was foreshadowed for years in warnings by native politicians, journalists and ombudsmen that the positioning had change into a dying entice.
On Saturday, the Israeli information media reported that senior police officers had blamed the Ministry of Religious Services as a result of it had signed off on security procedures for the occasion earlier in the week.
But politicians and political commentators additionally accused the police and different authorities of enjoying a component in the tragedy. One of these beneath scrutiny is the minister for public safety, Amir Ohana, who oversees the police and rescue companies and attended the pilgrimage himself.
Successive Israeli governments had been blamed for turning a blind eye to questions of safety on the mountain for greater than a decade to keep away from alienating the ultra-Orthodox Jews who attend the anniversary celebration, identified in Hebrew as a hillula. Seven of the final 9 Israeli governing coalitions have relied on the assist of ultra-Orthodox events.
Referring to the minister for public safety, Anshel Pfeffer, a political commentator and writer, wrote in the liberal Israeli newspaper Haaretz, “Ohana would not have considered — not even for a minute — to restrict arrivals to the hillula at Meron and anger the ultra-Orthodox politicians who control the fate of his master, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.”
“But neither did his predecessors consider it,” he added.
Mr. Netanyahu is at present struggling to cobble collectively a brand new coalition authorities that can require the assist of two ultra-Orthodox events to have an opportunity of forming a parliamentary majority.
A senior police officer, Morris Chen, stated on Friday evening that police protocols had not been influenced by political interference.
Mr. Ohana, the general public safety minister, posted on Twitter that police had finished their finest.
“There must be and will be a thorough, in-depth and real inquiry that will discover how and why this happened,” he later stated in a video, including, “From the bottom of my heart I wish to share in the sorrow of the families that lost the most precious thing of all, and to wish a swift and full recovery to the injured.”
The lawyer common, Avichai Mandelblit, tasked an unbiased watchdog that investigates claims of police wrongdoing with assessing accusations of police negligence in the buildup to the catastrophe.
But on Saturday, Kan, the state-run broadcaster, stated that the watchdog was reluctant to supervise the investigation due to the roles performed by different officers and our bodies past the police.
Hundreds of hundreds of ultra-Orthodox Jews go to Mount Meron every spring for the pageant of Lag b’Omer. It honors the dying of a second-century Jewish mystic, Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai, whose tomb is on the mountain.
Crowds had been banned in 2020, however about 100,000 returned this yr after a profitable vaccination drive that has allowed a lot of Israeli life to return to one thing approaching normalcy.
The occasion has lengthy prompted calls to restrict the variety of pilgrims allowed to attend. The website is a warren of slim, sloping passageways and small, cramped plazas that guests have typically warned had been unsuitable for crowds.
The catastrophe started in the early hours of Friday morning as crowds gathered in a small area beside the tomb to look at the lighting of a number of ceremonial bonfires. Thousands of individuals then tried to depart by means of a steep, slim slope that finally connects, by way of a brief financial institution of steps, to a slim tunnel.
As they neared the steps to the tunnel, some at the entrance slipped on the metallic ground of the slope, witnesses stated. That created a sudden blockage, trapping a whole bunch at the underside. As increasingly more pilgrims continued to depart the ceremony above, they started trampling on these under them.
In 2008 and 2011, the state comptroller, a authorities watchdog, warned that the positioning’s pathways had been too slim to accommodate so many individuals. The native council chief stated that he had tried to shut it at least 3 times.
In 2013, the police chief of northern Israel warned colleagues of the potential for a lethal accident. And in 2018, the editor of a significant Haredi journal stated it was a recipe for catastrophe.
On Friday evening, a present consultant of the state comptroller stated that the dearth of a coherent management construction at the positioning made it more durable to implement a correct security system there.
Different elements of the positioning fall beneath the jurisdiction of 4 competing personal non secular establishments, all of which resist state intervention.
There was “one main fault,” Liora Shimon, deputy director common at the comptroller, instructed Kan. “It is the fact that this site is not under the responsibility of one single management.”
A survivor of the tragedy, Yossi Amsalem, 38, stated that chaotic website administration had contributed to the crush, however stopped wanting attributing blame to any specific group. Mr. Amsalem stated that the passageway the place the crush occurred had been used for two-way visitors, which had made it even more durable to maneuver.
“The path should either be for going up or going down,” Mr. Amsalem stated from a hospital mattress in Safed, a metropolis throughout the valley from Meron. “There shouldn’t be this confusion.”
The tragedy drew sympathy and solidarity from throughout the religious-secular divide in Israel. Health employees stated that 2,200 Israelis had donated blood to assist these injured on Mount Meron. Flags can be flown at half-staff on Sunday at official state buildings because the nation observes a day of nationwide mourning.
But the disaster additionally reignited a debate about religious-secular tensions in Israel, and concerning the quantity of autonomy that needs to be granted to elements of the ultra-Orthodox neighborhood that resist state management.
While many ultra-Orthodox Jews play energetic roles in Israeli life, some reject the idea of Zionism, whereas others reject participation in the Israeli navy or work power and resist state intervention in their training system.
The tensions soared during the pandemic, when elements of the neighborhood infuriated the secular public by ignoring state-enforced coronavirus rules, even because the illness devastated their ranks at a far greater charge than the remainder of the inhabitants.
For survivors of the Meron catastrophe, the crush due to this fact turned the most recent in a collection of struggles and setbacks, as an alternative of a joyous post-pandemic return to normalcy and custom.
“It’s been such a difficult year,” stated Moshe Helfgot, a 22-year-old whose proper leg was damaged in two locations in the crush. “And now there is yet another disaster.”
Irit Pazner Garshowitz and Jonathan Rosen contributed reporting.
source https://infomagzine.com/recriminations-grow-in-israel-after-stampede-at-mount-meron/
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