Two children die after becoming locked in car in southern Israel

Two young children died on Friday after becoming locked in a car in the Bedouin town of Hura in the Negev desert in southern Israel, while a 15-year-old boy drowned in a nearby community, medics and police said.

The children were unconscious when they were rescued from the vehicle and taken to the nearby Soroka Medical Center in Beersheba, Magen David Adom medics said, adding that they tried to resuscitate them but they were declared dead at the hospital.

“To our sorrow, despite efforts to resuscitate them that continued in the trauma unit, we were forced to declare them dead,” the hospital said.

The ages of the two children, apparently cousins, were not immediately clear, with police saying they were 3 and 7. However, the hospital said they were both 4-years-old.

Hebrew media reports said the children were apparently playing in an abandoned vehicle when they became locked inside and trapped for several hours in the hot car.

Police said they had opened an investigation into the deaths.

According to the child safety organization B’Terem, last year six children died after being forgotten or accidentally trapped in cars.

In a separate incident in Shoket, a few miles away, a 15-year-old boy died after apparently falling into a water hole.

Medics said he showed no signs of life when pulled from the water and they were forced to declare him dead.