Day after Meron inquiry rebuke, PM’s office says cabinet to mull acting on findings
Netanyahu’s office says proposal to be handed to ministers within 30 days, doesn’t address commission’s finding that he bears personal responsibility for deadly crush
The cabinet will consider a proposal to implement the recommendations of a state commission of inquiry into the fatal crush at Mount Meron in 2021, the Prime Minister’s Office said in a statement Thursday, a day after the report was released.
It was the first official reaction from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office, though his Likud party on Wednesday sought to delegitimize the commission of inquiry after it named the premier among those personally responsible for the disaster, in which 45 Israelis were trampled to death during a Lag B’Omer pilgrimage.
Netanyahu himself has yet to publicly comment on the report.
In its statement responding to the findings of the panel, Likud rejected the commission of inquiry’s mandate, charging that it was being used as a “political weapon” against Netanyahu
The 320-page report found Netanyahu personally responsible, but did not recommend sanctions against him. It did, however, call for Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana to be banned in the future from the public security minister role he held at the time of the disaster, and recommended that other officials, including Israel Police Chief chief Kobi Shabtai, be removed.
While the inquest said that it wouldn’t propose sanctions for Netanyahu due to his position, it was scathing in its assessment of him, saying that it was reasonable to assume that he knew that the site was dangerous after the alarm had been raised by multiple official bodies over the years.
The statement from the premier’s office said Netanyahu ordered Cabinet Secretary Yossi Fuchs to present ministers with a proposal to implement the report’s recommendations within 30 days.
“You don’t have to wait 30 days to implement the lessons. The main conclusion: personal responsibility. Netanyahu should resign,” Opposition Leader Yair Lapid wrote on X.
Lapid and other political rivals also hit out at the premier on Wednesday, suggesting his conduct leading up to the Meron disaster foreshadowed his failure to avert Hamas’s brutal October 7 onslaught.
“What happened in Meron was not a coincidence or mishap. It is a pattern of neglect, negligence and dangerous irresponsibility. As the commission determined, ‘this disaster could and should have been averted,’” the opposition leader said.
Forty-five men and boys were killed on April 30, 2021, in a crush at the hilltop gravesite of second-century sage Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai on Mount Meron in northern Israel during the annual Lag B’Omer celebrations, after 100,000 worshipers, mostly members of the ultra-Orthodox community, crowded into the holy site despite longstanding warnings about the safety of the complex.
President Isaac Herzog also released a statement Thursday on what he called “a professional, comprehensive, in-depth report” into the 2021 disaster.
“To avoid another disaster like this in the future, it is essential that the report’s conclusions be studied and it is our duty to implement them as a matter of urgency,” he posted on X on Thursday, formerly Twitter, adding a prayer for those still recovering from the catastrophe “in body and soul.”
Ultra-Orthodox parties United Torah Judaism and Shas, both allies of Likud in the ruling coalition, on Wednesday acknowledged the conclusions of the state commission of inquiry and said they would learn the necessary lessons to prevent a similar tragedy from recurring.
The commission, established in June 2021 by the Bennett-Lapid government and headed by retired judge Dvora Berliner, heard testimony from Netanyahu as well as numerous other officials, and received documents from relevant ministries and government agencies to determine the failures that led to Israel’s worst-ever civilian disaster.
