2 members of Israeli family killed, 3 injured, in UK hit-and-run accident

Two Israelis were killed and three people were injured, including two children — all from the same family — in a hit-and-run traffic accident in England on Wednesday night, police and medics said.

The incident happened as the family was standing outside a five-story parking lot on Leopold Street in the southeastern seaside resort town of Ramsgate, Kent police said.

Though police did not give the nationalities of the victims, the Israel-based Zaka emergency service said that it received reports they were Israelis from the same family.

The Foreign Ministry said in a statement that the Israeli embassy’s consul Sima Duvdevani was in contact with the family, which it identified later Thursday.

According to police, a black Alfa Romeo car veered off the street and hit the family, killing Yoram Hirschfeld, 78, from Rosh Pina in northern Israel, and his daughter Noga Hirschfeld, 40, while the latter’s 6-year-old daughter suffered serious injuries.

Noga Hirschfeld’s husband, in his 40s, and their 8-year-old son suffered minor injuries.

The Foreign Ministry said it was in touch with the Hirschfelds’ relatives in Israel and that the embassy in London was assisting the family members in England “as much as possible.”

Police said a local resident, 30, was arrested on suspicion of causing death by dangerous driving and leaving the scene of a collision, UK media reported. He was receiving medical treatment for minor injuries.

Zaka said that all of the injured Israelis were taken to a hospital. Media reports said the injured girl was taken to a medical center in London for treatment.

RAMSGATE: A suspected hit-and-run driver killed a man in his 80s and woman in her 30s and seriously injured a young girl after a black Alfa Romeo struck 5 members of the same family in Leopold Street around 9.35pm last night. A local man (30) was arrested later. Pic @SweatSteamy pic.twitter.com/L2VKvSyOcE

— Kent 999s (@Kent_999s) August 11, 2022

Ramsgate is the final resting place of Sir Moses Montefiore, the Jewish philanthropist who financed the first modern-day Jewish community in Jerusalem outside the walls of the Old City in the late 1800s.

Montefiore bought an estate in Ramsgate in 1831, and later built a private synagogue on the site. He and his wife, Lady Judith Montefiore, are buried in an adjoining mausoleum.