An 18-year-old man who was critically wounded earlier this week in a stampede that erupted at the funeral of a prominent Hasidic rabbi in Bnei Brak died of his injuries on Wednesday morning.
He was the second person to have died as a result of the chaos at Rabbi Shmuel Halevi Wosner’s funeral before dawn on Sunday, as tens of thousands of people crowded into the procession toward the Hazon Ish Cemetery in Bnei Brak.
Motti Gerber, a 27-year-old resident of Elad, succumbed to his wounds on Sunday morning. More than a hundred people were treated by Magen David Adom paramedics over the course of the night. Four, including the 18-year-old, were hospitalized.
Only a limited number of people were initially allowed to enter the yeshiva building where the procession left from, but there was massive overcrowding at the entrance. One of the participants tripped and several others fell with him and were trampled by the large crowd. At about 1:30 A.M. paramedics were summoned to the scene.
The other two who were injured included a 14-year-old boy and a 36-year-old man with serious head injuries.
The commander of the Tel Aviv District Police, Bentzi Sau, has ordered an investigation of the events of the funeral and the conduct of the organizers, on suspicion of negligence. Sau has transferred the investigation to the district fraud unit in order to avoid a conflict of interest and to enable an examination of the conduct of the police as well.
The Dan Region police said that they prepared for the funeral as well as possible together with the organizers, within the limited time frame at their disposal.
