Thirty-nine Israeli soccer fans were injured in Haifa, northern Israel on Saturday, when crowds of jubilant supporters of the Maccabi Haifa team ran onto the pitch minutes before the end of a league game, said reports.
Haaretz newspaper said thousands of chanting, flag-waving fans invaded the pitch after Haifa scored, crushing the victims against a fence.
The stampede occurred when at the end of the game against Maccabi Tel Aviv, a large number of fans attempted to stream onto the field to celebrate with the players.
The weekend witnessed another catastrophe when 23 people died when a wedding hall collapsed, also leaving more than 300 injured in occupied west Jerusalem on Thursday night.
An Israeli military official announced Saturday at a press conference that he had ordered rescue workers to conclude their operations following assessments that there were no more people under the ruins of the wedding hall, reported Israel Radio.
He said that in light of the fact that there were no outstanding reports of missing people from families, and that police investigations had accounted for all the people present in the building at the time of the collapse, including foreign workers and Palestinians who worked in the building, he had decided to end the rescue operation, said the radio, cited by Haaretz.
He added that the dangerous conditions in which the rescue operations were taking place, with the constant fear of a further collapse of the destroyed building, could not justify continued rescue work after the forces had become convinced that there were no survivors or bodies left in the ruins.
The site of the building has been declared off-limits and the army has handed over control of the site to the Jerusalem municipality, which is expected to complete the demolition of the building.
Police have appealed to the public not to come to the site as it is still regarded to be dangerous, said the radio report - Albawaba.com
