State commission of inquiry into 2021 Meron disaster to present report this week

The state commission of inquiry into the 2021 Meron disaster announces it will present its report on the deadly incident to the government on Wednesday, after two and a half years of work.

The document will be published immediately afterwards, the commission says.

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.

The commission, established in June 2021 by the Bennett-Lapid government and headed by retired judge Dvora Berliner, heard testimony from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who was premier at the time, 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.

Netanyahu denied responsibility for the catastrophe when questioned by Berliner in July 2022 as to why the safety problems with the site were never addressed during his 12-year period in office from 2009 to 2021 despite being raised on numerous occasions.