Benjamin Netanyahu has “responsibility” for the deadly stampede on Mount Meron in 2021, according to a commission of inquiry

The Israeli Prime Minister again in turmoil. The Israeli commission of inquiry into a stampede, which led to the death of 45 people during a Jewish pilgrimage to Mount Meron in April 2021, concluded that “personal responsibility” by Benyamin Netanyahu, in his report published Wednesday March 6.

The Prime Minister “knew or should have known that the site (…) had been poorly maintained for years” and could represent “a risk for the many participants” to the pilgrimage marking the Jewish festival of Lag B’Omer, explains the commission of inquiry in its report.

He “did not act as one would expect of a Prime Minister”

Benyamin Netanyahu has, with his services, the responsibility “proactively identify” problems representing “a risk for human lives”and has “not acted as one would expect of a Prime Minister to correct this state of affairs”said the commission of inquiry.

Forty-five people, including children, died in a crowd on April 30, 2021 during an annual religious pilgrimage bringing together tens of thousands of Orthodox Jews to Mount Meron, in the north of the country, around the presumed tomb of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai.