ZAKA Northern District Commander and Rabbi Anshel Friedman recited the Kaddish Yatom with volunteers before the bodies of victims from the Meron disaster were driven away in a truck, on Friday.

Footage shows Rabbi Friedman reciting the mourner’s prayer, said as part of mourning rituals and at funerals in Judaism, together with volunteers from the ZAKA. The group of emergency response organisation volunteers also worked to help the police identify the bodies.

At least 45 people have died and 150 were injured as tens of thousands of revellers gathered near Mount Meron, in northern Israel, for the Lag B’Omer Jewish festival.

The incident took place as tens of thousands of primarily ultra-Orthodox Jews participated in the annual event, around the tomb of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai, a 2nd-century Tannaitic sage. The festival was the largest event taking place in the country since the beginning of the pandemic.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the incident ‘one of the worst tragedies Israel has known.’