Twenty one people were killed and 45 injured today when a truck hit an army tank transporter near Gaza. It was the worst traffic accident in Israel’s history. Some 40 of those injured remained in the hospital during the day for treatment. All the dead and all but one of the injured were Arabs, on their way from their village of Deir el-Ballah in the Gaza Strip to work in Tel Aviv.
The Arab workers were travelling in a truck, equipped with benches to carry passengers, which entered a crossroad near Gaza on a green light. An empty army tank transporter entered the junction on a red light, travelling at high speed. It knocked the passenger vehicle into a field where it overturned. The tank transporter plunged into a field and came to a stop when it hit a railway embankment. The driver of the transporter was injured.
In another accident this morning, 46 people were injured when the brakes failed on a bus as it was negotiating steep turns on a mountainside road near Dimona. Most of the passengers sustained slight injuries.
Today’s accidents brought the number of people killed in highway accidents to 52 during the first 10 days of the month and nearly 400 injured, higher than any previous entire month.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
