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Security forces and believers in Meron
Photo: MENAHEM KAHANA / AFP
A good year after the mass panic that killed 45 people during the Lag BaOmer festival in northern Israel, there have been clashes between ultra-Orthodox Jews and the police during this year's pilgrimage on Mount Meron.
"Dozens of extremists" entered a section of the religious site by "violently breaking through the barriers and endangering lives," police said on Thursday.
After last year's accident, the safety precautions had been increased.
A photographer for the AFP news agency reported how the police first withdrew after the pilgrims broke through the barriers, but then returned.
Handcuffs were put on several people.
Other believers were prevented from entering the area where the pilgrimage festival was to continue until late Thursday evening.
According to the police, more than 10,000 believers gathered at the pilgrimage site at the beginning of the festival on Wednesday.
Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett stressed that his government had significantly increased security measures around the pilgrimage site to prevent another accident.
45 dead, including 16 children
During the Lag BaOmer festival, pilgrims, especially ultra-Orthodox believers, make an annual pilgrimage to Rabbi Shimon Bar Jochai's grave on Mount Meron.
According to the new safety regulations, only a maximum of 16,000 pilgrims can stay at the site at the same time.
Around 8,000 police officers secured the festival.
The Israeli rescue service Magen David Adom assumes that there will be hundreds of thousands of pilgrims.
There are hundreds of medical helpers on site, the service said.
On April 30 last year, a mass panic broke out during the festival in the men's section of the pilgrimage site.
At least 16 were children among the 45 dead.
The stampede is considered the worst civil disaster in the history of the State of Israel.
dop/AFP
