Neglect led to deadly Israel crush, Netanyahu shares responsibility, panel says
A state commission of inquiry found that years of ignored safety warnings at Mount Meron led to the 2021 crush that killed 45 people, and that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu bore personal responsibility.
An Israeli state commission of inquiry concluded that years of neglect at the top levels of government led to the deaths of 45 men and boys at an overcrowded religious festival at Mount Meron in 2021, and that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu shares in the responsibility, according to reporting from The Times of Israel and U.S. News & World Report. The panel, headed by retired judge Dvora Berliner, released its findings on March 6, 2024.
The disaster occurred on April 30, 2021, when tens of thousands of ultra-Orthodox Jews gathered at the tomb of second-century sage Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai for the annual Lag B'Omer celebration. Part of the crowd surged into a narrow tunnel, and the crush that followed asphyxiated or crushed to death 45 celebrants, including children -- the worst civil disaster in Israel's history, per the reporting.
The commission did not recommend sanctions against Netanyahu given his position, according to The Times of Israel, even as it found 'a reasonable basis to conclude that Netanyahu knew that the site of Rashbi's grave was improperly dealt with for years, and that it was liable to be a danger to the masses.'
What the panel found went wrong
The commission described the years of poor management at the site -- which drew enormous annual crowds -- along with safety rules that were repeatedly ignored and improvements that were never made, as a 'Greek tragedy, whose end was known from the start,' per The Times of Israel's coverage. The panel said it 'got the impression that political pressures negatively impacted the process of making decisions relating to the site's management and their quality, and prevented attempts to improve the situation.'
Other officials named
Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana, who was public security minister at the time of the crush, and police chief Kobi Shabtai were also named as bearing responsibility, according to The Times of Israel. The commission recommended Ohana be barred from future service as national security minister. For Shabtai, the commission said it would normally recommend termination but deferred that decision to the government given the war underway at the time of the report's release. Netanyahu, when questioned by the commission, denied responsibility, saying his attention had not been drawn to the safety concerns at the site. The commission also called for criminal investigations related to the disaster to be reopened, per The Times of Israel's reporting.
A politically charged reaction
Netanyahu's Likud party rejected the findings as politically motivated, saying in a statement reported by The Times of Israel that 'Lapid's cynical and deliberate attempt to turn the Meron disaster into a political weapon will not succeed.' Likud also challenged the commission's legitimacy, noting it had been established by Netanyahu's political rivals Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid and was examining an event that predated their government, and questioned the impartiality of commissioner Shlomo Yanai, saying he had received a Knesset slate offer from Lapid.
Lapid, then in opposition, argued the pattern of neglect at Meron foreshadowed later failures, saying, per The Times of Israel, 'If Netanyahu were an ordinary citizen, he would stand trial today for causing death by negligence and go to prison.' Labor party figure Merav Michaeli went further, calling Netanyahu personally responsible and submitting a no-confidence motion. War cabinet member Benny Gantz took a more measured tone, calling the findings a 'lifesaving report' for emergency services going forward. Both named officials responded directly: Ohana said 'I carry with me the grief of the families' and accepted personal responsibility despite what the report described as long-standing infrastructure failures, while Shabtai accepted the findings and said he was prepared to step down.
US In News compiled this archived account from contemporaneous coverage by The Times of Israel and U.S. News & World Report. It restores a story originally published on this site in March 2024; figures are as reported at the time.