One man was killed and two more seriously injured in a crash between a private vehicle and a bus in Be'er Sheva in the early hours of Thursday morning.
Preliminary indications are that the people in the private vehicle were two burglars who were fleeing police after breaking into a house in the Naot Lon neighborhood in the southern city.
Police said in a statement that the car that was involved in the collision was the same car that was seen being recklessly driven away from the scene of the crime. The break-in was reported a short time before the accident. When police cruisers began arriving, the two suspects escaped in their car. Within minutes, as the police were conducting their initial investigation and initiating a search, they received a report of the collision.
Firefighters arriving at the scene of the crash rescued the injured who were trapped in the crushed private car. MDA crews evacuated the driver - a man around 30 - who was seriously injured. A passenger in the car, a man, 35, was critically injured and later pronounced dead.
The bus-driver, 47, was also injured in the collision and was rushed to the hospital. His condition is termed moderate to serious, with multiple injuries.
MDA paramedic Eyal Oz, who was at the scene, told media: "There was a completely crushed vehicle in the middle of the road and a bus that was clearly hit in the front. There were two men in their 30s trapped in the car, and a man in his 40s was lying outside the bus, fully conscious and having suffered multiple injuries. After initial treatment, we evacuated the bus driver to the hospital in moderate to serious condition.
"We administered first aid and CPR to the two people in the car after extracting them from the crushed vehicle. We were eventually forced to declare the death of the man who was in the passenger seat, and we evacuated the driver in serious condition with a head injury," Oz added.