IDF soldier killed, 15 hurt in accident on Route 6

Iron rods fall from truck on Route 6, crushing passengers on Egged bus; one severely injured, 14 suffer light wounds.

By BEN HARTMAN
bus accident 370 (photo credit: Courtesy Israel Police)
bus accident 370
(photo credit: Courtesy Israel Police)
An IDF soldier was killed and 15 other people were injured, one seriously, in a road accident between an Egged bus and a truck on Route 6 on Wednesday.
The soldier, Rani Halabi, 19, of the Druze village of Daliat al-Carmel, was a relative of Majdi Halabi, the IDF soldier whose remains were found in October after he’d gone missing without a trace seven years earlier. Majdi Halabi’s brother, Adham, a 21-year-old border policeman, was killed in a car accident almost exactly a year ago.
Egged bus 960, from Jerusalem to Haifa, had pulled over to the side of the road when a truck traveling behind it swerved to pass on the left, causing steel rods it was carrying to come loose and collide with the bus, a Sharon District Police spokesperson said. The rods blew out the windows in the entire back half of the bus and caved in part of the rear.
The injured passengers were taken to Meir Medical Center in Kfar Saba and the Rabin Medical Center in Petah Tikva for treatment. One remained in serious condition as of Wednesday evening.
The accident caused massive traffic jams as police and paramedics struggled to clear the injured from the area and remove the wreckage from the highway.
Sharon District Police said Wednesday it had detained both drivers and would question them to determine if there was some sort of wrongdoing that led to the accident.