The state commission of inquiry into the deadly 2021 Mount Meron crush finds former public security minister Amir Ohana personally responsible for the disaster, recommending that he not be appointed to the job again.
The report says police chief Kobi Shabtai also bears responsibility and that he should be removed from his post, but given Israel’s current security challenges, adds that the government should wait on his ouster until it feels the time is better.
Yaakov Avitan, who had been religious services minister at the time, is found personally responsible as well in the 322-page report. The commission recommends he not be made a minister again.
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.
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