Inquiry Implicates Israel’s Netanyahu for Negligence in Deadly Meron Crush

A state commission of inquiry implicated Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and several other high-ranking officials in the tragic events of the 2021 Meron disaster, which claimed the lives of 45 individuals during a religious gathering in northern Israel. The disaster occurred at the crowded hilltop gravesite of the second-century religious leader Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai during the annual Lag B’Omer celebrations, marking Israel’s deadliest peacetime calamity.

The inquiry, which lasted over two and a half years, identified negligence on the part of Netanyahu, then public security minister and current Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana, police chief Kobi Shabtai, and other officials and held them personally responsible. Despite acknowledging Netanyahu’s awareness of the site’s longstanding safety issues, the commission refrained from recommending sanctions against him due to his prime ministerial position. It criticized Netanyahu for failing to address the known dangers, emphasizing that his inaction and lack of engagement with repeated warnings were inexcusable.

The commission’s report extends beyond Netanyahu, suggesting that Ohana be prohibited from future service as national security minister while indicating that police chief Shabtai’s role should be reevaluated after the ongoing conflict with Hamas concludes. Additionally, former religious services minister Yaakov Avitan was deemed personally accountable, with a recommendation against his reappointment as minister.