Emergency services were seen working at the Lag B’Omer Jewish festival in Meron, on Friday morning, after at least 44 were killed and 150 injured in a stampede during the overcrowded gathering.
Emergency workers arrived and began cleaning the site, and looking for more victims of the disaster.
During the stampede, which involved a structure collapsing at the festival, several people slipped, causing dozens more to fall as a consequence. Authorities evacuated the festival and a field hospital was set-up on site, while dozens of ambulances and six helicopter evacuated the injured.
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 a ‘heavy disaster.’