The death of a 12-year-old boy who fell from a boat in the Jordan River was pronounced Sunday. Contact with him was lost after the fall, prompting a large-scale search near Yesud HaMa'ala in the southern Hula Valley.
The report was received at 2:45 p.m. by Magen David Adom's 101 emergency hotline in the Jordan region. Numerous forces, including Fire and Rescue Services teams and police, searched the area following a report that a boy of about 12 had disappeared in the water after falling from an overturned boat.
Rescue teams operating in the Jordan River
(Video: Fire and Rescue Services)
After more than an hour of searching, a specialized rescue team located the boy in critical condition. MDA medics pronounced him dead at the scene.
MDA paramedic Assaf Perlman and MDA medic Harel Levy said: "During the search for a 12-year-old boy who had gone missing in the Jordan River, the Golan Rescue Unit located him and brought him to us unconscious after he had been underwater. We performed medical examinations, but he showed no signs of life and we had no choice but to pronounce him dead."
Search for the missing child
(Photo: Israel Fire and Rescue Services)
Levy told ynet that "after the Fire and Rescue Services and the rescue unit carried out search operations, they found him on the riverbed and pulled him out. Unfortunately, at that point there was nothing we could do to help or save him."
Perlman, who also serves with the Golan Rescue Unit, said: "This was a boy who was vacationing with his family on the banks of the Jordan River. He went into the water in an inflatable boat. At some point, he fell from the boat and his family could not find him."
"After more than an hour, we found him underwater. We searched the river together with the fire crews," he said. "These are very busy days for us. This is already the third rescue today for the Israel Police's Golan Rescue Unit, and it's only Sunday."
Earlier in the day, volunteers were called to rescues at the El Al and Yehudiya streams.
At the end of June, Hala Azzam, 13, and Iman Khair, 14, both from Abu Snan, drowned in the Jordan River during a family outing. They entered the river with another teenage girl, who managed to get out on her own and reported them missing.
The two girls were found dead within five hours, about two hours apart.