Meron, Israel

The tomb of Shimon bar Yochai (Hebrew: קבר רבי שמעון בר יוחאי), or Kever Rashbi (קבר רשב״י), on Mount Meron is the traditional burial place of the 2nd-century Mishnaic rabbi Shimon bar Yochai. A place of pilgrimage since the late 15th century, it is today the second-most-visited Jewish site in the world after the Western Wall with as many as two million annual visitors.The tomb building was built in the mid-19th century by Shmuel Abu, the French consular agent in Safed.

On 30 April 2021, at about 00:45 IDT (UTC+3), a deadly crowd crush occurred on Mount Meron, Israel, during the annual pilgrimage to the tomb of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai on the Jewish holiday of Lag BaOmer, at which it was estimated that 100,000 people were in attendance. Forty-five men and boys at the event were killed, and about 150 were injured, dozens of them critically, making it the deadliest civil disaster in the history of the State of Israel. The crush occurred after celebrants poured out of one section of the mountainside compound, down a passageway with a sloping metal floor wet with spilled drinks, leading to a staircase continuing down. Witnesses say that people tripped and slipped near the top of the stairs. Those behind, unaware of the blockage ahead, continued. The people further down were trampled over, crushed, and asphyxiated by compression, calling out that they could not breathe. The potential for such a calamity, given the tens of thousands of celebrants, had been reported by the state comptroller and the police chief. The local council had tried several times to close the site. Reuters cited Israeli media outlets in reporting that, as a precaution against the COVID-19 pandemic in the country, bonfire areas had been partitioned off, which may have created unrecognised choke-points. It was later pointed out that the bonfires were not all lit at the same time, as in the past; this allowed people who had seen one lighting go to see another, increasing crowds. On 10 May 2021, police arrested the safety engineer who approved the Lag BaOmer celebration and his assistant. Investigators said that senior police officers should be questioned, as suspects rather than witnesses. On 27 June, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Israel, Esther Hayut, announced that a three-paneled state commission of inquiry would be chaired by her predecessor, former Supreme Court Chief Miriam Naor, with the other two members consisting of former Bnei Brak mayor Rabbi Mordechai Karlitz and Aluf (ret.) Shlomo Yanai. In Israel, such a commission of inquiry has the powers to subpoena witnesses and issue recommendations to the government.

Meiron (Arabic: ميرون, Mayrûn; Hebrew: מירון הקדומה) was a Palestinian village, located 5 kilometers (3.1 mi) west of Safad. Associated with the ancient Canaanite city of Merom, excavations at the site have found extensive remains from the Hellenistic and Early Roman periods. The remains include a 3rd-century synagogue, and Meiron served as a prominent local religious centre at the time.From the 13th century onward, Meiron was a popular site for Jewish pilgrims. During Ottoman rule in Palestine, the Jewish population fluctuated considerably, with at least two-thirds of the population being Arab Muslims. Landownership in the village was nonetheless split almost evenly between Arabs and Jews. Depopulated in two waves over the course of the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, the moshav of Meron was founded in its place in 1949 by Israeli soldiers who fought in that war.

On August 4, 2022, a bomber with the Palestinian militant group Hamas conducted a suicide bombing aboard an Egged bus at the Meron junction in northern Israel near Safed. In addition to the bomber, six Israeli civilians, and three Israeli soldiers were killed. Thirty-eight people were injured.Hamas subsequently publicly claimed responsibility for the attack, claiming it was in retaliation for an Israeli airstrike against a Hamas commander and to express displeasure with a UN-sponsored investigation into the Israeli incursion into the Jenin refugee camp that April.Saeb Erakat condemned the attack, and Palestinian minister Nabil Shaath claimed that Palestinians were continuing to try to halt attacks on Israel, despite the Israeli actions. The bus attack occurred a week after the Hebrew University bombing, in which a Palestinian attacker affiliated with Hamas killed 9 people.On 27 August, Israeli authorities arrested 7 Arab-Israelis, all members of the same family, who allegedly assisted the bomber. According to police, the suspects helped store explosives in a nursery school, dressed the bomber as a tourist, and scouted the target.In 2019, Israeli Defense Minister Naftali Bennett signed an order enabling Israel to seize "pay-for-slay" payments from the Palestinian Authority to Arab Israelis convicted on terrorism charges. This order included two prisoners who Israeli claimed assisted the Meron Junction bomber.

Bar Yohai (Hebrew: בַּר יוֹחַאי) is a religious Jewish community settlement in northern Israel. Located near Mount Meron, it falls under the jurisdiction of Merom HaGalil Regional Council. as of 2021 its population was 1,086.

The Merom HaGalil Regional Council (Hebrew: מועצה אזורית מרום הגליל, Mo'atza Azorit Merom HaGalil) is a regional council in the northern Galilee of northern Israel. The regional council was established in 1950. The head of the council is Shlomo Levi.

Or HaGanuz (Hebrew: אוֹר הַגָּנוּז, lit. Hidden Light), sometimes Or Ganuz, is a community settlement in northern Israel. Located in the eastern Upper Galilee, about six kilometers northwest of the town of Safed, it falls under the jurisdiction of Merom HaGalil Regional Council. In 2021 it had a population of 600.

Al-Sammu'i (Arabic: السموعي) was a Palestinian Arab village in the Safad Subdistrict. It was depopulated during the 1947–1948 Civil War in Mandatory Palestine on May 12, 1948, under Operation Hiram. It was located 4 km west of Safad. Today, Kfar Shamai is built on the site of the old village, and Amirim is built on the southern part of the village land. In 1945, the village had a population of 310. Al-Sammu'i had a mosque and a shrine for a local sage known as al-Shaykh Muhammad al-'Ajami.

Mount Meron Nature Reserve is a declared nature reserve in the Galilee that constitutes the largest nature reserve in northern Israel, with an area of 90,596 dunams. The reserve was declared on December 9, 1965, and has undergone several expansions and reductions in area since then. The Mount Meron Nature Reserve is among the largest and oldest nature reserves in the Land of Israel.

The Safsaf massacre took place on 29 October 1948, following the capture of the Palestinian Arab village of Safsaf in the Galilee by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). The village was defended by the Arab Liberation Army's Second Yarmuk Battalion. Safsaf was the first village to fall in Operation Hiram, the aim of which, according to the IDF, was to "destroy the enemy in the central Galilee 'pocket,' to take control of the whole of the Galilee and to establish a defense line on the country's northern border." The village was attacked by two platoons of armored cars and a tank company from the 7th Brigade, and a fierce battle lasted from the evening until seven o'clock the next morning.Evidence of a massacre in which 52–64 villagers were killed by the IDF comes from several contemporaneous Israeli government sources and Arab oral history. The evidence suggests that 52 men had their hands tied, were shot and killed, and were buried in a pit. Several women reported allegations of rape by the IDF, including the rape and murder of a 14-year-old girl. At least two internal inquiries were initiated during 1948–49 by the IDF, but their reports remain classified.

Safsaf (Arabic: صفصاف Ṣafṣāf, "weeping willow") was a Palestinian village 9 kilometres northwest of Safed, present-day Israel. Its villagers fled to Lebanon after the Safsaf massacre in October 1948, during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War.

Kfar Shamai (Hebrew: כפר שמאי) is a moshav in northern Israel. Located in the Upper Galilee, about 1.9 miles (3 km) west of Safed, it falls under the jurisdiction of Merom HaGalil Regional Council. In 2021 it had a population of 575.