More than 40 killed due to stampede at Israel’s religious festival

Around 45 deaths and 150 injuries of ultra-Orthodox Jews have taken place in northern Israel where the former were gathered among tens of thousands at a religious festival of Lag BaOmer at Mount Meron due to a stampede.

The festival which was being celebrated by bonfires and dancing around the tomb of a rabbi was clouded by ill fate as the ultra-Orthodox Hasidic community of Toldos Aharon was asphyxiated and trampled in a heavily cramped and packed corridor. As participants started persistently pushing through the slippery staircase, suddenly, a row of people fell to the floor, piling atop one another, witnesses say.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited the site of the overnight stampede during an ultra-Orthodox religious gathering in the northern Israeli town of Meron, on Friday declared Sunday to be a day of mourning and described the tragedy as ” one of the worst disasters that have befallen the state of Israel.”