Israel's state watchdog, the State Comptroller's office, issued warnings in 2008 and 2011 of the risk of a disaster.
Special danger was posed by access roads and paths which "are narrow and not appropriate to accommodate the hundreds of thousands of people who visit the site", the office was
quoted as saying by the New York Times.
What was different this year was that bonfire areas were partitioned off as a Covid-19 precaution and this may have created unexpected choke-points for foot traffic, Reuters reports, quoting Israeli media.
Thousands of police officers closed down the event after the crush before helping evacuate attendees.