The body of a man in his 30s who was swept away in a flash flood near the northern coastal city of Nahariya while trying to rescue family members was found on Wednesday afternoon near the city's marina.
The man was swept up in a flood in the Ga'aton Creek near the city as he was trying to rescue family members and other residents who had gotten caught in a flood that resulted from torrential rains earlier Wednesday.
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Firefighters and rescue workers spent two hours searching for the man.
Magen David Adom paramedic Eran Friedlander said, "We got to the beach near the marina, with the ambulance. About 100 meters north of the mouth of the Ga'aton Creek, at the edge of the war, we saw a man who was unconscious without a pulse and wasn't breathing. It was a really stormy day and huge amounts of water were flowing around us."
Paramedics attempted to resuscitate him, to no avail.
Also in Nahariya Wednesday, firefighters rescued 15 children who were trapped in a flooded kindergarten.
To the northwest, schools on the northern Golan Heights were closed due to heavy snowfall.
A car is pulled out of floodwaters in Nahariya
Video: Hadshot Bazman
In Haifa, a woman in labor whose vehicle was stuck on a flooded road was rescued and taken safely to local hospital.
Paramedics Oded Golan and Eliad Deutsch, senior MDA personnel who were scrambled to the scene, said, "We were called to the scene of a car where there was a woman about 30 years old whose water had broken on her way to the hospital … She had been stuck in a traffic jam for about an hour."
The paramedics said they had been called out in an all-terrain vehicle and were able to reach the woman quickly and take her to the maternity ward at Rambam Medical Center.
The Israel Nature and Parks Authority put out a special message on Tuesday stressing that until Saturday evening, there was a risk of flash floods in the Judean Desert and southern Israel, as well as local flooding and strong winds. To that effect, the INPA said, hikers were ordered to avoid creek beds and ravines until the water level dropped.
"Stay away from the edge of ravines during floods, lest the cliff collapse," the message read.
