Israel’s commission of inquiry into a stampede that killed 45 people during a Jewish pilgrimage to Mount Meron in April 2021 found Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to be “personally responsible,” in its report released today.

“We have come to the conclusion that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu bears personal responsibility” for this tragedy, the commission says.

The prime minister “knew or should have known that the facility (…) had not been well maintained for years” and could pose a “danger to the many participants” in the procession held each year for the Jewish holiday of Lag Baomer, the report explains she.

Benjamin Netanyahu had, together with his services, the responsibility to “proactively identify” problems that posed a “danger to human lives” and did not “act as can be expected of a prime minister to remedy this situation”, the inquiry further said.

Charged with overseeing the operation of public institutions, the public auditor’s office had on two occasions, in 2008 and 2011, warned of equipment shortages at Mount Meron facilities.

Forty-five people, including children, were killed in a stampede on April 30, 2021, during the annual religious pilgrimage which was attended by tens of thousands of Orthodox Jews on Mount Meron, in the north of the country, around the tomb of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai.

Attributed to this Talmudist of the 2nd c. A.D. the compilation of the Zohar, a central work of Jewish mysticism.