2 killed, 5 injured in Jordan Valley car accident

A deadly collision between two commercial vehicles in the Jordan Valley’s Route 90 highway on Sunday claimed the lives of a Palestinian man and an Israeli man, and left five more people severely injured.

Medical teams that arrived at the scene, located north of the Dead Sea near the small town of Argaman, pronounced the two men, both in their 30s, dead on the spot, and administered emergency treatment to the other five passengers. The wounded were later evacuated to the Beilinson and Tel Hashomer hospitals by helicopter, Israeli media reported.

According to the Or Yarok Association, an organization dedicated to promoting safe driving in Israel, nine people are killed on average every year on Route 90, a two-lane north-south highway that cuts through the West Bank, and close to 350 are injured.

Or Yarok has repeatedly urged the government to erect a small separation barrier between the winding road’s two lanes, a move which according to the association would result in up to 30 percent fewer car accidents, the Walla news site reported.

Adiv Sterman contributed to this report.