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More than 100 worshipers were injured and two were killed on Sunday evening, when a seating structure collapsed inside a crowded, unfinished synagogue near Jerusalem that officials said had not been deemed safe for use.
At least 600 people were packed into the temple in Givat Zeev, a West Bank settlement, to celebrate the Jewish holiday of Shavuot, officials said. The congregation belongs to the Karlin-Stolin Hasidic group, an ultra-Orthodox branch of Judaism.
Those responsible will be arrested, Doron Turjeman, the Jerusalem police chief, predicted.
“During the past week a meeting was held, during which the commander of the station informed the head of the council that this structure cannot hold prayers in it, and clear instructions were given accordingly,” Mr. Turjeman said.
The Israel Fire and Rescue Services said that on Friday, it learned of the planned gathering and told the congregation not to proceed, because the unfinished structure had not been authorized for occupancy.
Shortly after 7 p.m., a set of bleachers collapsed under the weight of the people on them. The two people killed were a 12-year-old boy and a man in his 40s, according to Israeli media.
At least 54 of the injured were hurt seriously enough to be taken to hospitals, Israel’s national medical service, Magen David Adom, reported. It said that at least five of them were seriously injured. Many of the seriously wounded were transported by helicopter, partly because military roadblocks are exerting unusually tight control over road traffic.
The more lightly injured were treated at the scene, as hundreds of emergency personnel converged on the synagogue.
The incident came 16 days after a crush of ultra-Orthodox worshipers killed 45 people at an overcrowded pilgrimage site in northern Israel.
Mr. Turjeman, the police chief, said, “we are once again tending to an event with negligence, irresponsible behavior.”
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