Woman and toddler killed in car accidents

A woman was killed Wednesday after her vehicle collided with a police car near the northern city of Tiberias.

Two men in their 40s — apparently officers who were in the patrol car — were moderately injured.

The woman, 35, was pronounced dead at the scene, near Shadmot Dvora.

Yossi Halabi, a paramedic with the Magen David Adom emergency service, said the woman was found unconscious, with fatal injuries.

On the other side of the road lay two injured men, conscious, next to an overturned vehicle. They were treated on site and evacuated by ambulance to Haemek Hospital in Afula.

In the south, a three year-old girl from the Bedouin town of Tel Sheva was run over and killed Wednesday morning by a car apparently driven by her father.

Police opened an investigation.

On Tuesday, a 13-year-old boy was killed and eight people were injured in a double collision with a camel.

The crash reignited demands that the government take steps to address the problem of camels wandering on the roads and hold their owners criminally responsible.

The Elmakiass family from the Negev desert city of Mitzpe Ramon was on the way to a family event in the northern city of Haifa when their car apparently collided with a camel on Route 40, not far from their home, killing Liel, 13, seriously injuring his mother and leaving his father and two siblings, nine and 14, with moderate injuries.

Four soldiers were lightly hurt when their car hit the same camel and overturned.

“When we arrived, it was a very difficult sight. We saw a camel on the road and next to it a private car that was completely crushed, apparently after rolling over several times,” Netanel Dahbash, a Magen David Adom emergency services paramedic, said.

According to figures from the non-profit Green Light traffic safety organization, 15 people have died over the past 15 years and 350 people have been injured, more than 50 of them seriously, in traffic accidents involving animals, the majority of them camels in the Negev.

The organization’s director general, Erez Kita, said, “How many people have to die before the lawlessness in the south is stopped? The camels wandering in the Negev have already claimed the lives of many drivers and passengers, including children and teens.

“Everyone knows that camels wander freely along the roads in the south, and endanger drivers, but nobody is solving the problem,” he continued. “The time has come to make the owners of the wandering camels responsible and to carry out maintenance and infrastructure work that will keep the animals off the roads.”