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Israeli flags lowered to half-staff in honor of Mount Meron crush victims, at the Knesset in Jerusalem, May 2, 2021. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
Amid growing questions over the lack of state oversight at the Mount Meron compound where 45 people were crushed to death late last week, Defense Minister Benny Gantz appealed to Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit on Sunday to give his legal opinion on the feasibility of forming a state commission of inquiry under the transitional government.
“There is an urgency in forming a committee quickly so that it can carry out a preliminary probe while information is readily available,” Gantz wrote in a letter to Mandelblit.
Caught in tug of war between authorities, religious sects and interest groups, Israel's 2nd most-visited Jewish holy place has no full, official state oversight
Tragédie de Meron : à qui la faute ? timesofisrael.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from timesofisrael.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Shas leader and Interior Minister Aryeh Deri (Noam Revkin Fenton/Flash90)
Aryeh Deri, the minister of the interior and head of the Shas ultra-Orthodox party, indicated in a Thursday evening radio interview, hours before the Meron tragedy, that he had blocked Health Ministry efforts to impose restrictions on the event, Channel 13 reports.
The TV station broadcasts an excerpt from the Thursday interview, with Radio Kol Hai, in which Deri says he “of course would not allow” the planned regulations to be introduced, and complains that the ministry was still trying to get the rules imposed as late as Wednesday night.