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Haredi hats and broken glasses are seen at the site of the Mt. Meron disaster in northern Israel, Friday, April 30, 2021 (AP Photo/Sebastian Scheiner)
As the initial shock and horror over Thursday night’s deadly crush at Lag B’Omer festivities on Mount Meron began to subside, focus started to turn on Friday toward the matter of who was to blame for the packed conditions at the site that led to the deaths of 45 people and the injuring of dozens of others in the fatal stampede.
Stark questions will likely be directed at political, civil and law enforcement officials involved in planning, approving and securing the event, amid talk of a potential state commission of inquiry to thoroughly investigate the disaster.
Warnings foreshadow deadly stampede in Israel al-monitor.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from al-monitor.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Warnings foreshadowed deadly stampede in Israel Despite years of warnings that the site was unsafe for such large events, thousands of worshipers gathered at Mount Meron for a celebration that turned into a nightmare. An ultra-Orthodox Jewish man prays after dozens were killed in a crush at a religious festival in Mount Meron on April 30, 2021, in Meron, Israel. - Amir Levy/Getty Images
April 30, 2021
It was shortly after midnight, the celebration at its frenzied peak. Tens of thousands of people were dancing ecstatically around bonfires to the sounds of a Klezmer band. The traditional festival on Mount Meron in the Galilee, at what is believed to be the burial site of the second century Talmudic sage Rabbi Shimon Bar-Yochai, was also marking an end to the lockdowns and social distancing that had prevented the ritual last year. All eyes were on the main event, the lighting of a huge bonfire by adherents of the ultra-Orthodox Toldot Aharon Hassidic sect. Suddenly, the
As Israel buries Mount Meron victims, attention turns to what allowed deadly stampede to occur April 30, 2021 3:34 pm A volunteer with the ZAKA response group walks through the debris left in the aftermath of the stampede in Meron, Israel, April 30, 2021. (ZAKA/Aharon Baruch Leibowitz)
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(JTA) The day after the deadly stampede at a religious festival in Israel on Thursday, the focus remained on identifying victims and allowing a shocked country, and global Jewish community, to grieve.
But the question of who or what is to blame already has begun to surface and likely will be a subject of speculation and inquiries for years.