After 8 days, search teams locate body of missing Umm al-Fahm man in Sea of Galilee
Raid Mahmeed, 49, fell off speedboat last weekend; IDF says it conducted 'advanced' scans to locate body, which was pulled out by scuba unit
The Israel Defense Forces and Israel Police on Saturday said their teams had located the body of Raid Mahmeed, 49, from Umm al-Fahm, who went missing in the Sea of Galilee last weekend.
According to police, Mahmeed fell off a motorboat near the town of Ein Gev on July 22. Since then, police officers and rescue organizations conducted search efforts with maritime vessels and scans along the coast of the large lake. The Israeli Navy joined in the efforts after a few days.
Mahmeed’s body was located on Saturday morning by the Navy, following “extensive scans of the sea using advanced and extensive technological means” and was pulled from the seabed by the Navy’s Yaltam scuba unit, the IDF said.
The Sea of Galilee is Israel’s largest freshwater lake, covering around 166 square kilometers (64 square miles). Its shores are lined with vacation sites that host tens of thousands of Israelis during the summer and other holidays.
There have been occasional cases of drownings in the lake over the years, often with bodies going missing for several days.
During Passover of 2017, the bodies of three young men were recovered from the lake after a week-long search. The three drowned after strong winds blew their rafts away from the shore.
