Tens of thousands of people are expected Wednesday, May 18 in northern Israel for an annual pilgrimage bereaved last year by a crowd movement, with reinforced security to avoid a new tragedy.
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On April 30, 2021, 45 people, including children, died in a giant stampede during the religious pilgrimage bringing together tens of thousands of Orthodox Jews, to Mount Meron, in Upper Galilee. Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett claimed that his government had made a “considerable investmentin security arrangements, to ensure that what has been described as one of the worst civilian disasters in the history of the Jewish state does not happen again. He called on pilgrims to “follow directions“.
Only pilgrims with an entrance ticket will be able to access the site, whose capacity has been set at 16,000 pilgrims, the Israeli authorities said.
Seizure of knives and hammers
Some 8,000 police will be deployed on the spot to maintain order, police said, who also said they would deploy drones, a helicopter, police on motorcycles and on horseback. Fearing that some may attempt to gain unauthorized access to the site, police said they would secure all access roads as well as the surrounding forests. On Tuesday, she claimed to have seized knives and hammers belonging to a “extremist ultra-Orthodox factionwhich allegedly intended to sabotage the site’s communications infrastructure. Last June, the Israeli government gave the go-ahead for the establishment of a state commission of inquiry into the stampede.
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The previous government led by Benjamin Netanyahu had not obtained a majority to set up this commission of inquiry, the ultra-Orthodox parties, allies of the former Prime Minister, having opposed it. In November, an interim report by the commission of inquiry pointed to the presence of risks “that endanger the safety of visitors“. The pilgrimage, which takes place on the occasion of the Jewish holiday of Lag Baomer, gathers the faithful around the presumed tomb of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochaï, a Talmudist of the second century of the Christian era who is credited with writing the Zohar, a work center of Jewish mysticism.