JERUSALEM (VINnews) — Israel continued to experience unseasonably inclement weather, including storms and torrential rains on Wednesday and Thursday. The weather conditions led to flooding in low-lying areas including in the Arava region, where a brother and sister from Tiveria, Maayan and Sahar Assor, tragically lost their lives after being swept away in flash floods on Monday.
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Many other people were rescued by fire and rescue workers from the flood waters, including Omer, a 17-year-old girl from Netivot, who related her hair-raising experiences on Israel radio. The girl said that she and her friends had been travelling from Eilat and had crossed one flowing stream before they came to another stronger flooded stream:
“My friends and I were in a huge traffic jam, and we could see the flood waters rising and we realized that we weren’t going to be able to outrun the water,” she described. “We turned the car around but then we got stuck in the stream we had crossed previously and the water started coming into the car, it was just pouring in unbelievably quickly.
“My friends were quicker to react than I was, and they climbed out onto the roof, but I didn’t make it in time. Four hours passed from the time I was trapped in the car until we were rescued, and I was there alone in the car all that time, and the water was up to my neck and all I could see around me was mud; I couldn’t see anything,” she continued.
“The nights haven’t been easy since then, I’m finding it hard to sleep. We’re all having nightmares about water choking us. It was a miracle from Heaven that we survived.”
Tragically, 18-year-old Sahar and 25-year-old Mayan Assur were less fortunate. Their bodies were recovered on Tuesday; they too had been caught in flood waters in the Negev Desert, in Nahal Paran.
עצוב מאוד – דובר צה״ל
כוחות צה"ל ויחידות החילוץ איתרו לפני זמן קצר את גופות שני הנעדרים מהשיטפון באיזור צומת ציחור שבערבה.
מזעזע.. הסרטון האחרון של הנעדרים לפני שנותק עמם הקשר.
>>>>> pic.twitter.com/d5CCL9Um6I— Asslan Khalil (@KhalilAsslan) April 11, 2023
Final clip taken by Sahar Assur:’ We are flooded, I don’t know what to do’
Contact with Sahar and Mayan was lost on Monday and a large police contingent along with IDF soldiers searched for them for over 20 hours until their lifeless bodies were found.
“These are very hard moments for our entire city,” said Boaz Yosef, head of the Tiberias city council. “The entire city has been praying and hoping for good news and for a Passover miracle, but instead the worst has transpired. We embrace the parents, Nini and Kinneret, and their remaining children, Tomer and Guy. The Assur family is a part of the Tiberias family and at such times we are all with them.”
Mayan and Sahar had been traveling together with Shai Dahan, Mayan’s partner, who was rescued from the floods. The three of them had been on their way home from Eilat and managed to alert the authorities that their car was trapped in flood waters on Route 40 before contact was lost with them. Their car began to fill with water; the three of them climbed out and were swept away. Shai was rescued four kilometers from the car after becoming trapped in rocks and was rescued the next morning.
“The car started to fill with water so we got out and I was swept away with my head above water, until I got stuck in some rocks,” Shai related. She is now in Soroka Hospital in Beer Sheva with light injuries and recovering from hypothermia.