Eight hikers killed in Dead Sea flash floods

Tel Aviv (dpa) 26 April, 2018 -    
Eight young people died in flash floods that struck while they were hiking in southern Israel, medical services said Thursday.  

Israeli police said that a group of 25 hikers had been hit by flash floods in Nahal Tzafit, a riverbed near the Dead Sea, but did not confirm any casualties.  

Eight of the hikers were killed and many others are missing, according to Zaka, an Israeli emergency rescue service.  

Two days of heavy rain in Israel have caused flooding throughout the country. On Tuesday, a 17-year-old Palestinian girl near Bethlehem and an Israeli-Arab teenager in southern Israel were both killed in flash floods.  “We are trying to get as much help as we can. We are walking by foot, helicopters, 4-wheel drives, whatever we can do in order to find the people who got lost,” said Nadav Eylon, the head of emergency and security at the local Central Arava Regional Council.