Israel crush: Netanyahu promises inquiry as first victims are buried

Families in Israel have begun burying their loved ones after at least 45 people died in a crush at a crowded Orthodox Jewish festival overnight.

Some 150 people were also injured at the Lag B'Omer festival, near Mount Meron, when people became trapped in an overcrowded passageway.

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Funerals were allowed to take place for victims who were positively identified.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised that an inquiry would ensure such a tragedy did not happen again.

Visiting the scene, he said it was one of the worst peacetime disasters the country had known.

One survivor who gave his name as David told Ynet news it had felt like a human wave had broken: "Our bodies were swept along by themselves. People were thrown up in the air - others were crushed on the ground."

Medics struggled to reach the injured in the ensuing chaos.

Witnesses: 'People were thrown up in the air'
What is the Lag B'Omer festival?
Those who died are believed to be predominantly men or boys as the crush at the largely gender-segregated event apparently happened in one of the men's sections.
Families in Israel have begun burying their loved ones after at least 45 people died in a crush at a crowded Orthodox Jewish festival overnight.

Some 150 people were also injured at the Lag B'Omer festival, near Mount Meron, when people became trapped in an overcrowded passageway.

Funerals were allowed to take place for victims who were positively identified.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised that an inquiry would ensure such a tragedy did not happen again.

Visiting the scene, he said it was one of the worst peacetime disasters the country had known.

One survivor who gave his name as David told Ynet news it had felt like a human wave had broken: "Our bodies were swept along by themselves. People were thrown up in the air - others were crushed on the ground."

Medics struggled to reach the injured in the ensuing chaos.

Witnesses: 'People were thrown up in the air'
What is the Lag B'Omer festival?
Those who died are believed to be predominantly men or boys as the crush at the largely gender-segregated event apparently happened in one of the men's sections.

Mourners in Jerusalem, 30 April
IMAGE COPYRIGHTAFP
image captionMourners attended a funeral ceremony in Jerusalem
Some victims are believed to be foreign nationals. Israeli airline El Al has offered to assist family members of victims living abroad who wish to attend their loved ones' funerals in Israel.

Sunday has been declared a national day of mourning.

What do we know about the victims?
Bodies of the dead were taken to the Greenberg Institute of Forensic Medicine in Tel Aviv, which had identified 32 before the process was halted for 24 hours on Friday evening for observance of the Sabbath.

One of the first funerals to be reported was that of Rabbi Elazar Goldberg, who was in his late thirties.

Mourners in Jerusalem prayed, some wept, as the body covered in a white sheet was moved into the back of a vehicle ahead of burial, Reuters news agency reports.