High-speed crash in Lower Galilee leaves 3 dead, 5 injured

Three people were killed and five others injured early Sunday, in a head-on-collision between two cars on an intercity highway in the north of the country, rescue services said.

Magen David Adom declared dead two women in their 30s who had been traveling in one car and a 20-year-old man in the other. Three people were taken to hospital in serious condition and another two with light-to moderate injuries, the ambulance service said.

A young girl who had been traveling in one of the cars was evacuated by helicopter to the Rambam Medical Center in Haifa after suffering a serious head injury. She remained in serious condition Sunday morning.

The accident happened at the Tsipori Junction on Route 79 in the Lower Galilee region and caused the closure of the highway for several hours.

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The cause of the crash was not immediately clear but both cars appeared to be travelling at full speed, according to Hebrew media reports.

Linking the two northern cities of Nazareth and Kiryat Bialik, some stretches of Route 79 have been widened in recent years but the section by Tsipori Junction still remains a one-lane road.

According to the National Authority for Road Safety, 336 people have been killed in car accidents across Israel since the beginning of the year.