Former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu testified Thursday before the state commission of inquiry into last year’s Mount Meron crisis that he saw forty-five other people killed in a fatal accident on a devout pilgrimage, and told the panel he was unaware of critical safety issues at the annual event. .
The April 2021 incident, the devout holiday in northern Israel, was the deadliest civilian crisis in the country’s history. Around 100,000 worshippers, mostly ultra-Orthodox Jews, attended the festivities despite long-standing warnings about the safety of the place.
Many media outlets reported that Netanyahu, who was prime minister at the time, came under pressure from ultra-Orthodox political allies to approve the occasion without limit on participation, despite long-standing police considerations about the safety of the crowd.
At the time, COVID-19 pandemic regulations limited gatherings to just one hundred people, which meant that the Lag Baomer event at Mount Meron required special government-approved regulations to allow for greater participation.
Asked directly through shlomo Yanai of the commission whether, as prime minister at the time and for years before, he assumed the “public or ethical duty for this catastrophe,” Netanyahu replied: “First of all, I assume the duty for what was in front of me. “and that was the epidemiological disaster, and I’ve moved away from it. . . In retrospect, there was a disaster. . . I can’t take up the duty for what I didn’t know.
“I didn’t know there was a critical security issue,” Netanyahu testified.
He told the panel that every year for a decade while in office, thousands of other people gathered in Meron to celebrate the Lag Baomer pilgrimage event.
“What happened this year [of the disaster] that didn’t happen in previous years?That’s the question,” he said.
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Netanyahu noted that many occasions involve mass rallies and that the prime minister intervenes if there are special considerations of protection or fitness.
In this case, Netanyahu said, he was not concerned with considerations of dangers, but only with building the mechanism that deserved to be done at the event.
“We are all experts in hindsight. If it could happen again today, I would act differently,” Netanyahu said.
Former judge Dvora Berliner, head of the commission, who asked the former prime minister a succession of profound questions, challenged Netanyahu to explain why, during his 12 years in power, security issues at the site were never addressed while the issue was raised. repeatedly. ” You were prime minister for 12 years. This factor [of safety at the busy annual event] kept emerging,” Berliner said. “How, really, why wasn’t the case handled?”
Netanyahu rejected his suggestion and claimed that their governments had done more than anyone else on the issue.
“Sorry, Your Honor, I am not satisfied with your statement. The file has been processed, in accordance with the recommendations of the State Comptroller’s Office. . . I attended to him, I made decisions that were intended to address the other disorders in the bush,” he said. “The only governments that did anything for the mountain were the governments I led. “
“In practice, it is due to professional authority and giving you the equipment to solve problems. The prime minister cannot deal with countless security issues,” he said.
“Again and again, the same challenge arises,” insisted one obviously concerned Berliner, mentioning a diversity of considerations documented year after year, “and this [apparently] causes a red light. That’s it. “
Netanyahu replied that there is no such thing as the deluge of worries she had suggested, “but maybe a drop here and a drop there. “
Berliner insisted there were repeated warnings that insufficient security measures meant a crisis was looming. crisis, adding dead and wounded,” he said, showing a written warning. “It’s a horrible sentence, in my opinion. “
“In fact,” Netanyahu said. I don’t need to minimize it. I just need to explain how the government works,” he said, noting that “most things don’t go as far as the prime minister. . . People don’t come to the prime minister and say, ‘Take note. . ‘” If he had been warned of the dangers, he said, “if you had been told, look, it happened to be a terrible disaster here, do something, I promise you, I would have taken care of this. “
Overseeing the occasion is the duty of the Ministry of Religious Affairs, he said, not the prime minister’s office. Netanyahu said his involvement last year was only due to epidemiological considerations due to the COVID-19 pandemic, not general security arrangements.
Although a framework, subsidized by Netanyahu, that allowed thousands more people to participate under special rules was thought of, it was never definitively approved. Thus, the event occasionally attracted another 100,000 people, less than the pre-COVID popularity several hundred thousand, but far more than the special regulatory framework would have required.
Netanyahu denied being persuaded through pressure from the ultra-Orthodox network to allow assistance beyond COVID limits. Asked if there is a link between the proposed framework and the demands of allied political parties, Netanyahu replied that there is none, insisting that he founded entirely on professional opinions.
“I did not act because of the tension that the haredim sought to open it up,” he said in another term for the ultra-Orthodox. “It wasn’t on the basis of tension, it was on the basis of orders from the Ministry of Health. “
Netanyahu also said it was not up to him to hold a cabinet assembly to review the proposed framework and that no ministry had received such a request.
Public broadcaster Kan reported on Wednesday that in order for the occasion to go as planned with the same large attendance as before, Netanyahu had to pass regulations allowing the birthday party to be exempt from COVID rules. The regulations have been developed through the relevant ministries which, according to previous reports, have limited attendance to 10,000, well below normal. But that hasn’t been implemented.
Netanyahu did not engage in inter-ministry deliberations on the issue, did not summon the cupboard to approve the regulations, and in the end did not point them out, according to the Kan report.
As a result, the pilgrimage took a stand on the approval of an official government regulation or resolution allowing an exemption from COVID rules.
At the time, advisers to the ministries warned that the occasion broke the rules, Kan reported, and the commission of inquiry said it had the same opinion.
Unnamed legal resources told the station that circumstantial aspects linking Netanyahu to the crisis may hold him accountable, prosecution of criminals unlikely. Instead, the committee is more likely to consider private recommendations on Netanyahu.
Netanyahu’s Likud party responded that the Kan report was “fake news, planned hoax. “
The party said the regulations presented in the report had never been approved by the so-called coronavirus cabinet of ministers in relation to the pandemic, nor by the attorney general, and had never been submitted to Netanyahu for approval.
Netanyahu is the most senior official to testify before the committee, which heard from more than a hundred other people, including former ministers who were present at the time.
On Wednesday, Ynet reported that Israeli police leader Kobi Shabtai and other senior officials are expected to be informed within weeks through the commission of inquiry that they will likely be found guilty of the disaster. These come with the head of the Northern District, Shimon Lavi, who on Monday announced his resignation from the force, bringing up the duty for the fatal Accident of Mount Meron.
While the committee’s recommendations require a long-term government to adopt them, no Israeli government has absolutely ignored the recommendations of a state commission of inquiry.
This year’s Lag B’omer event was held within strict limits. Authorities instituted several security measures to prevent a repeat of last year’s disaster, restricting crowd size, demanding tickets and modifying the way the event was organized.
The government also repaired the stairs and infrastructure around the complex to bolster security.
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