Firefighters discover: Safety officer killed in accident alongside 17-year-old
In an accident in the Galilee, teenager Rian Asad from Kasra and Hurfeish resident Srour Amar, head of the occupational safety and training department at the Fire and Rescue Authority headquarters, were killed. The driver from the fatal hit-and-run in Eshkol has not yet been located.
The two people killed in the accident on Highway 854 near Karmiel today, Saturday, are 53-year-old Srour Amar from Hurfeish and 17-year-old Rian Asad from Kasra. Another man was seriously injured in the accident.
In two other fatal accidents today, a 93-year-old man was killed at the Ra'anana junction, and a foreign worker was killed in a hit-and-run accident in Eshkol. The driver involved has not yet been located.
Srour Amar served as the head of the occupational safety and training department at the Israel Fire and Rescue Authority headquarters. The Fire and Rescue Authority stated:
"He worked for years to protect the lives and safety of firefighters and the system's employees."
The incident commander on behalf of the fire department at the scene, Reshef Talia Murad, said: "During the rescue operations, it became clear to us that the person trapped in the vehicle was a Fire and Rescue officer, our colleague in the system who is known to us from our joint work. Despite the difficult and shocking moment, the teams acted with professionalism and sensitivity, while making an effort to extract him quickly and hand him over to medical personnel."
In an accident near the community of Tzochar in the Eshkol Regional Council, a woman in her 40s riding an ATV was seriously injured. A Magen David Adom team treated her and evacuated her to Soroka Hospital in Beersheba suffering from multi-system injuries, where her death was pronounced. Officers from the Ofakim station and Southern District forces are working to locate the driver of the vehicle who fled the scene, while at the same time, traffic accident investigators from the Negev region are continuing to investigate the circumstances of the accident.
According to the National Road Safety Authority, almost 300 people have been killed in traffic accidents this year. Although the number of fatalities is still about 5% lower compared to the same period last year, professionals warn that the improvement trend recorded at the beginning of the year is eroding. At the current rate, they say, 2026 could end with a number of fatalities similar to that recorded in 2025, when 459 people were killed on the roads, the highest figure in more than two decades.
