Searches for 3 missing in Sea of Galilee enter 6th day

Teams scan lake’s beaches and deep waters for young men, now presumed dead, who were swept away by currents last week

Search operations for three three young men who went missing in the Sea of Galilee entered their sixth day Monday.

Search teams and volunteers were combing the beaches while boats and helicopters scanned the lake’s waters for Itamar Ohana, 19, Nahman Itah, 21 and Liron Karadi, 17.

On Sunday the navy sent a specialized search ship and an elite team of divers to help in the search for the three, after they were swept by winds away from the coast and into deeper waters.

The three, lost in separate incidents on Wednesday, had all entered the water on blow-up rafts, but ran into trouble when winds picked up.

The assistance from the navy came after Interior Minister Aryeh Deri asked Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman to involve the military in the search.

Israel Police Commissioner Roni Alsheich visited the site of the search on Sunday, and said that the working assumption was that the three were no longer alive.

He said that the search for the bodies will continue both under the sea and on the shore. He warned that “from past experience, an underwater search of such a large area can take many weeks.”

According to reports, during the morning Itah and his girlfriend set out on a floating raft from the Lavnun Beach camping resort on the eastern shore of the lake. Strong easterly winds and currents pushed them out into deeper water where the mattress overturned. A jet-ski rider was able to save the woman, but Itah was out of sight.

Later Wednesday morning, Karadi and another teenager, who also floated out on a blow-up raft, were swept out, after which the device became punctured. One of the teens was rescued, but Karadi was missing.

In the third incident, a number of teens set off from Lavnun on a floating mattress and were also taken westward, away from shore, by the wind. Two were able to swim back to shore but the third, Ohana, went missing.

Their disappearance came as more than 80 other people were rescued from the lake on Wednesday, as heavy winds surprised holiday bathers.

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 week-long Passover holiday.