The cable car connecting the resort town of Stresa to Mount Mottarone, which collapsed on May 24, 2021, killing 14. Photo: BKP/Wikimedia.

i24 News – Five Israelis among the 14 people who were killed in northern Italy when a cable car slammed into the side of a mountain were members of one family, Israel’s Foreign Ministry confirmed on Monday.

One of the Israeli victims included a two-year-old child, while another five-year-old Israeli was critically wounded.

The sole survivor of the crash, Eitan Biran, is currently receiving treatment at Turin’s Regina Margherita hospital.

Amit Biran, 30, his wife, Tal Peleg-Biran, 26, and their 2-year-old son Tom Biran, were identified as victims of the incident, the Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

Peleg-Biran’s grandparents Barbara and Yitzhak Cohen of Tel Aviv, 71 and 81, also perished in the crash.

The accident occurred in the resort town of Stresa, which lies on the shores of Lake Maggiore in the Piedmont region. Italy’s Ministry of Infrastructure said it happened at around 12:30 pm on a popular cable connecting Stresa to the summit of Mottarone mountain nearby.

The likely cause, according to the ministry, was a cable snapping at the top of the mountain.

According to Stresa’s mayor, Marcella Severino, the cable car “began to go backward [and] probably hit a pylon.”

President Sergio Mattarella and Prime Minister Mario Draghi expressed their “profound grief,” offering condolences to the victims’ families as regional as well as EU leaders expressed their sorrow and shock.

Minister of Infrastructure Enrico Giovannini said he would open an inquiry into the accident.