BICOM

Ten teenagers from an organised trip have died after they were caught in flash floods swept across Israel and the West Bank on Thursday afternoon.

Military helicopters and rescue teams searched the area around the Tzafit stream that flows into the rift valley at the southern end of the Dead Sea after a flash flood caught a party of 25 high school children by surprise.

The teenagers, who were due to join the Bnei Zion pre-military academy after finishing high school this summer, were on a two-day bonding trip to Tzafit stream in the Arava. Those of the group walking in the middle of the stream were immediately carried off by the massive wave.

More than a dozen other members of the group were rescued as the Israeli military and emergency responders launched massive efforts to find them.

“Israel grieves the promising young lives that were cut off by this tragedy in the Arava,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in response to the news. “We embrace the families with grief and pray for the speedy recovery of the wounded,” he added.

Police have begun making arrests in their investigation into the death of the young Israelis members of the staff of the programme which took them on the trip in for questioning. After the staff members were questioned, two were arrested and a third was released to house arrest.

Weather warnings for severe rainfall and flooding in the area where the group was hiking were issued on Wednesday and Thursday. The Israel Meteorological Service also issued a warning on the risk of flooding in the Dead Sea region, the southern Judean Desert and the Arava.

Two Palestinian children who went missing on Thursday were found Friday morning dead in a reservoir that flooded in the El Fuwar refugee camp south of Hebron. The two were identified as 10-year-old Yazen Mohammad Asrahana and nine-year-old Ahmed Samich Asrahana.

On Wednesday, another two Palestinian teenagers also died in flash floods, one in the Mamshit River in the southern Negev and the other east of Bethlehem.