Tel-Chai Nation

A terrible incident occurred near the Dead Sea as 10 students - 8 girls and 2 boys - drowned while hiking through a canyon and got struck by a flood. The trip organizers are suspected of misguided planning:

The Israel Police opened an investigation Thursday after 10 high school students were killed in a flash flood while on a hike in the Judean Desert.

The trip to Nahal Tzafit, a riverbed in the southern Dead Sea area, was organized by the Tel Aviv-based Bnei Zion pre-army preparatory program, which the students were considering attending after they graduated high school.

On Thursday night, the head of the program and two staff members were reportedly questioned by police. According to unconfirmed reports, they are suspected of negligent homicide for holding the hike despite flood warnings in the area.

A senior police officer — equivalent in rank to an army colonel — was put in charge of the case, police said in a statement.

“Israel Police investigators began collecting evidence and looking into the circumstances of the incident,” police said.

The 10 fatalities were identified as of Friday morning as Shani Shamir from the central city of Shoham; Ella Or from Ma’ale Adumim; Maayan Barhum and Yael Sadan from Jerusalem; Tzur Alfi, the only boy who was killed, from the central town of Mazkeret Batya; Agam Levy from the central Israeli town of Herut; Romi Cohen of Maor, near Hadera; Gali Balali from the Tel Aviv suburb of Givatayim; Adi Raanan of the northern Israel moshav of Mikhmoret; and Ilan Bar Shalom of Rishon Lezion.

The hike was apparently not the first field trip by Bnei Zion that ended in injury. Last year, the pre-army program, known in Hebrew as a mehina, went on a hike that resulted in multiple students suffering from serious dehydration, according to the Walla news site.

It sounds like the counselors and guides were incompetents who failed to comprehend the serious dangers faced in such an area, and went off entirely without proper organizing. If so, they're guilty, and should be prosecuted. My condolences to the victims' families.

Labels: Israel, military, Moonbattery