Palestinian worker crushed to death by excavator at Rishon Lezion landfill

A Palestinian worker died at a landfill in Rishon Lezion on Monday after he was struck by an excavator, medics and police said.

The Magen David Adom ambulance service said paramedics found the 40-year-old unconscious with no vital signs at the site on Maryland Street on the outskirts of the city, and pronounced him dead.

“The wounded man was lying next to the excavator unconscious and suffering from a very severe multi-systemic injury,” MDA medics said.

The driver of the excavator, a man in his 20s from the central city of Ramle, was detained by officers for questioning, police said.

Officers were investigating what caused the accident.

Police said they would decide whether to request to extend the remand of the driver following an initial interrogation.

Police officers are seen at the scene of a deadly incident at a Rishon Lezion landfill, where a 40-year-old Palestinian worker was crushed to death by an excavator, August 29, 2022. (Israel Police)

Last Tuesday, a construction worker was killed in the same city, and two days before that, three construction workers lost their lives at two sites in the north.

The Haaretz daily reported last year that the rate of deadly work accidents in Israel’s construction industry is more than double the average in the European Union. The vast majority of laborers killed are either Palestinian or Arab Israeli.