Ten Hikers in an Israeli pre-army preparatory program based in Tel Aviv have been reported dead near the Tzafit stream in the Dead Sea region. Police have opened an investigation into the death related to potential negligence on the part of the organizers. Text messages show that the hikers were already reticent about the conditions as a flash flood was raging around them.
<blockquote>"I can't believe I'm actually going hiking in weather like this. It doesn't make sense to go to a place that's completely flooded. It's tempting fate. We're going to die – I'm serious," she wrote to her friends on the messaging application WhatsApp.</blockquote>
The police were conducting a search until dark last night, but since the final missing teen has been found the focus is now on an investigation of the organizers of the program. Police are now examining whether the adults in charge of the program should be found guilty of negligence leading to the deaths of the ten teens.
Police volunteers and army helicopters were engaged in the search. Of the fifteen recovered who survived, two are being treated for hypothermia currently. at Soroka Medical Center in Be'er Sheva.
Nine of the hikers, eight female and one male, were found to be dead by Thursday. Police search ended at dark, but as of now all the missing teens are accounted for. The hike likely should not have been conducted at all considering the fact that all the Israeli agencies involved in issuing warnings related to rain and flooding in Southern Israel had issued warnings to avoid the area where the group had been hiking.
Source:
Twitter: #Israel #Tzafit #DeadSea #FlashFlood
