At least 5 dead, dozens hurt in bus crash in North

A bus carrying 40 passengers, most of them children and teens, collided with a car and a van on Highway 89 in the Galilee on Wednesday and at least five people were killed. Dozens were injured.

The four passengers in the private vehicle – a 35-yearold mother and her three children: a 15-year-old boy, a 12-year-old boy and a fiveyear-old girl – were all declared dead by Magen David Adom (MDA) paramedics at the site.

The bus driver, 76-year-old Asher Basson, was also killed, according to Kan News.

The bus was ferrying a group of children of the Bnei Akiva youth movement, 17 of whom are from the northern town of Mevo Dotan.

According to reports, the bus first hit the van and then the car. It flipped over at least three times and landed on its side, as was seen in video footage seen on social media.

Most of the passengers were able to get out of the bus and are in stable condition.

“The heart breaks in light of the images from the difficult crash in the Upper Galilee,”

tweeted Prime Minister Naftali Bennett Wednesday evening, after he landed back in Israel from his visit to the United States. “The people of Israel is praying for the recovery of the victims. I ask the Israeli public to exercise extra caution to drive safely and carefully.”

“My son is mostly scared,” a mother of one of the children on the bus told N12. “He sustained a few bumps from the flip. He is on the way to the hospital in Nahariya.”

The youth were returning home from a Sukkot trip with a Bnei Akiva group in Harish, a small town near the site of the accident. Most of the 35 children on the bus suffered light or moderate injuries.

“We felt that the bus accelerated for an unknown reason, and then we rolled over three or four times,” a Bnei Akiva counselor recounted.

“He said he was talking to

a friend and suddenly there was a hard collision and he said the bus spun around and they fell,” the mother continued, relaying the dramatic moments of the crash. “Kids began crying and screaming. The bus was mostly children.”

According to reports from the scene, the bus crashed into a car and then into the van, and both were crushed.

(David Cohen/Flash90) THE SCENE of the serious accident between a bus and two cars on Highway 89 in the northern Galilee yesterday.

(Basel Awidat/Flash90) INJURED YOUTH arrive at Ziv Medical Center in Safed, after being involved in a serious accident on Highway 89 in the northern Galilee yesterday.