Sunday's bloody toll: seven dead

Deadly traffic accidents around country; dead include toddler

By Shaya Egozi and Shmulik Hadad|Published: 06.27.05 , 00:41

Carnage on the road: seven people, including an infant, were killed Sunday in three separate crashes around the countryt. According to the police, the accidents were the result of carelessness and lack of experience on the part of the drivers involved.

3:30 p.m. (8:30 a.m. EST): Crash at Skokat

The accident was the result of a head-on collision between a car and a rented vehicle. Police said that the privately owned vehicle held six passengers, one more than allowed by the law.

Fire fighters and ambulance crews spent an hour trying to rescue the injured from the wreckages, but the operation was complicated by the fact that other motorists, apparently the relatives of those in the crashed vehicles, tried themselves to free the injured.

Seven injured people, two of them in critical condition, were admitted to Beer Sheva's Soroka Medical Center.

Magen David Adom's deputy director for the Negev, Itzik Alfasi, was among the first on the scene. He said that fire fighters tried to free three critically injured passengers, but they died before they could get to the hospital.

In a separate accident near Kibbutz Shoval, another seven people were injured.

1:30 p.m. (6:30 a.m. EST): pile-up in Eilat

According to a preliminary investigation, a truck belonging to the el-Nabali company crashed into five cars, which had stopped for a checkpoint north of the resort city of Eilat.

The driver, 43, with a long history of traffic violations, was going 80 kph (50 mph) and had fallen asleep at the wheel. He totaled at least three of the cars; killed a 13-year-old girl, and 12 injured people, leaving three of them in serious condition.

Yossi Bar, from Beer Sheva, witnessed the accident.

"We heard the crash while were waiting in line to drive into Eilat," Bar said. "When we turned around, we saw the truck crash into the first car and send it flying. Then the truck hurt the car in front of that one, and we banged in each other."

3:00 p.m. (8:00 a.m. EST): Toddler run over in Netanya

A two-year-old was killed when struck by a car along Zalman Schneur Street. An ambulance crew found the child in serious condition and tried, but failed, to revive him.

Stepping from between two parked cars, the child tried cross the road by himself when an eastbound taxi hit him. The cab driver is being questioned by police.

5:20 p.m. (10:20 a.m.): One dead at Golani Junction

One of two cars ran a red light at Golani Junction, resulting in a collision that killed a 70-year-old woman and injured four others. Police are still not sure which one of the motorists, the driver of the Audi or the Chevrolet, had ignored the stop light.