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The accident occurred mainly when tens of thousands of ultra-Orthodox Jews were taking part in the annual pilgrimage of a learned religion.
Rescue services reported that dozens of people were killed Friday at a Jewish pilgrimage site in northern Israel.
Israeli emergency service Magen David Adom posted an updated toll on Twitter, adding that “the MDA is fighting for the lives of dozens of injured people and will not give up until the last victim is evacuated.”
On social media, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said it was a “great disaster” and added: “We are all praying for the welfare of the dead.”
The stampede occurred mainly when thousands of ultra-Orthodox Jews were taking part in the annual pilgrimage to the Lag BaOmer festival in Meron, around the tomb of the famous second-century sage of the Talmudic rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai.
Emergency services deployed six helicopters to evacuate the injured.
Israeli media published an image of a row of bodies covered in plastic bags on the floor.
Authorities allowed 10,000 people to gather at the tomb, but organizers said more than 650 buses had left the country, bringing 30,000 pilgrims to Meron.
About 5,000 police were deployed to secure the event, the most crowded gathering in the country in the coronavirus pandemic.
The static crowd gathered despite health officials warning them to avoid the dangers of COVID-19.
Witnesses said people realized they were suffocated or oppressed when an organizer called through a loudspeaker to disperse the crowd.
“We thought there might be an alert around a suspicious package (bomb). No one imagined it could happen here. The joy turned into mourning, the bright light turned into deep darkness,” a pilgrim who signed up told Yitzhak told Channel 12 television.
“Rabbi Shimon said he could absolve the world … If he had not been able to rescind this edict on the very day of his ascension, we must seek the true soul.”
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