12-year-old boy drowns in Jordan River after falling from raft

A 12-year-old boy drowned Sunday in the Jordan River, after falling from a raft while on a family trip to northern Israel.

The boy was identified in Hebrew media reports as Elhanan Karni, from the Haredi settlement of Modiin Illit. He was an incoming eighth-grade student.

Extensive searches were launched for the boy after he fell off his raft into the river, and disappeared in the area of Yesud HaMa’ala, in the Hula Valley.

Rescuers deployed eventually found the boy and declared him dead at the scene.

According to a paramedic who spoke to Ynet, Karni and his family had been spending the day on the riverbank, when the boy entered the water on a small inflatable raft.

“At a certain point he fell out of the raft and his family couldn’t locate him,” Magen David Adom paramedic Harel Levy told the outlet. “After more than an hour, we found him underwater.”

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Elsewhere in the north, a 16-year-old boy died during a rappelling accident at the Keshet Cave in the Galilee.

The boy was at the cave with his family when for some reason he fell, dropping some 30 meters (100 feet) to the ground below, reports said.

Rescuers took time to get to him due to the difficult terrain, with medics eventually rappelling down to him themselves.

They found the boy unconscious and attempted to resuscitate him, but were eventually forced to declare him dead at the scene.

He has not yet been identified in reports.