Car overturns in Arava; parents, child die in collision; 3 killed on Friday.
By REBECCA ANNA STOILroute 65 accident 298.88(photo credit: Channel 10)
Three passengers were seriously injured and one woman was killed when a car overturned Saturday night on the Arava Highway, bringing the weekend death toll on the highways to seven.
The wounded were evacuated to a hospital by helicopter, and the reasons for the accident were not immediately clear.
Earlier, a four-year-old boy and his parents were killed in a head-on collision on Route 65 on Saturday afternoon, bringing the death toll on Route 65 over the past week to five.
Muhammad Mahamid, 36, his wife Ghada, 31, and their son Uday were killed in a head-on collision near the Alon Tavor industrial zone, east of Afula. Their vehicle apparently swerved out of its lane and collided head-on with an oncoming truck, which rolled on top of the family's vehicle. Uday's two older brothers, 10 and 12, remained in Afula's Ha'emek Hospital in very serious condition.
"The road has an unforgiving infrastructure," said Doron Benamo, spokesman for the Israel Police's Traffic Department, citing a lack of a divider separating traffic east of Afula, although the highway is one of three major east-west routes that cross the North. At some points, the highway drops to one lane in each direction, and throughout the past five years, it has been consistently one of the country's deadliest roads.
Less than a week earlier, a woman her and daughter were killed in a multiple vehicle accident on the same road. The father of Wadi Ara-area family was hospitalized in serious condition at Hadera's Hillel Jaffee Hospital, while his infant was transferred to Sheba Hospital at Tel Hashomer suffering from very serious head injuries. That collision occurred at Arara junction around midnight Sunday, when a truck struck the family's car, pushing it into two other vehicles. Two other victims of the accident were taken to Hillel Jaffe in good condition.
On Friday morning, a woman was killed and six injured in a collision at Tel Sheva junction on Route 60. According to police, a vehicle traveling from Beersheba to Omer hit a car that was turning left. Police suspect that the cause of the collision was that one of the two vehicles failed to stop for a red light.
The woman's 10-year-old old son and her husband, residents of Kfar Madim in the South Hebron Hills, were both hospitalized in Soroka Hospital. Six people, all from the Abu Kayf Beduin encampment, were injured, three of whom were taken to Soroka in good condition.
On Saturday, a truck hit and killed an elderly West Bank resident in a Wadi Ara town. The driver was apparently driving in reverse on the busy east-west highway.
Another woman was killed when the motorcycle on which she was a passenger spun out of control on the Jerusalem-Tel Aviv Highway between the Sha'ar Hagai and Shoresh interchanges. The motorcycle's driver was also injured.
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