Two people were killed and two others wounded in a lethal traffic accident that took place Tuesday afternoon between a private car and a full trailer truck, in one of three serious accidents that happened around the same time.

The lethal crash occurred at the entrance to the town of Elazar, located in the Gush Etzion region of Judea to the south of Jerusalem, as heavy rains and wind continue to lash Israel and the wider region.

The two victims were later identified as Gila and Moshe David Marciano, residents of Rosh Tzurim in Gush Etzion.

Magen David Adom (MDA) forces who arrived on the scene provided treatment to the wounded, and began evacuating them to hospitals. Police have launched an investigation into the circumstances, and a traffic investigator was dispatched to the scene.

Responding to the crash, police closed Highway 60 where the accident took place from the north to the south, redirecting southern traffic via Efrat.

Bus slip

Another accident took place around the same time, in which 29 people were wounded – one moderately and the rest lightly – when a bus slipped in Jerusalem’s Ramat Sharet neighborhood.

The bus slipped for a yet unknown reason near Hakokhav Square in the neighborhood, and as a result crashed into a wall.

MDA crews called to the site treated the wounded, most of whom were children, and evacuated twelve of them including the moderately wounded individual to Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital in the capital. Another fourteen were evacuated to Shaare Tzedek Hospital, and the last three to Hadassah Mount Scopus Hospital, all in Jerusalem.

Police and firefighter crews were dispatched to the site, but it quickly became clear that no one was trapped in the bus. The police launched an investigation into the crash.

In yet another incident shortly before the lethal crash in Elazar, it was reported that a Palestinian Arab female pedestrian in her 50s was seriously wounded after being hit by a car on Highway 465 adjacent to Neve Tzuf, in the Binyamin region of Samaria.

An MDA team provided her treatment and evacuated her by helicopter to Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital; the woman suffered a serious wound to her head in the accident.