8 women killed, 50 others injured in major road accident in south Israel

Bus and truck carrying a tractor collide; bus was carrying Bedouin women who had visited the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem.

HAARETZ

Eight women were killed and some fifty people injured in a major road accident in southern Israel on Tuesday afternoon.

The accident took place when a bus and a truck carrying a tractor passed each other in travelling in opposite directions on a two lane road near Lehavim Junction in the Negev.

The passengers were suffering from varying degrees of injuries. Some were trapped in the wreckage of the bus, and firefighting crews were working to rescue them. Magen David Adom paramedics and rescue helicopters were called to the scene.

The bus was carrying female worshipers who were at Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem’s Old City as part of an Islamic Movement project. The Islamic Movement’s northern branch organizes daily visits of Israel Arab Muslims to the Al-Aqsa mosque compound in order to increase Muslim presence at the holy site.

The daily buses depart early in the morning and return in the afternoon. The women killed in the crash were returning to their homes in the northern Negev, where many Bedouin towns and villages are located.

Last October, one person was killed and ten injured in a pile up on Route 40, also near Lahavim Junction, when two trucks and ten private cars collided.

This is a developing story.