The body of a 5-year-old boy was found Thursday afternoon at Kibbutz Sdot Yam, on the coastal plain, after nearly 7 feet of water were pumped from a drainage ditch into which he apparently fell.
A search for Roi Signer had been under way since Wednesday morning, when the youngster wandered out of his kindergarten classroom in the kibbutz nursery school.
He appears to have been a victim of the fierce storms that ravaged Israel this week.
Police and volunteers continued to search for two Bedouin cousins, ages 9 and 16, missing since Monday while herding sheep. They were reported last seen trying to rescue a lamb from a rain-swollen stream.
The boys, residents of Jisr e-Zarka village near Caesaria, were reported missing when their flock wandered home unattended. But a relative told Israel Television on Thursday evening that their disappearance may not have been related to the storm.
He said some villagers suspected it was linked to a recent kidnapping in the village in a feud over “family honor.”
The storm, which began Monday afternoon, immobilized much of the country with record rain and snowfalls.
The Haifa Bay area was especially hard-hit by floods when the Kishon River overflowed its banks, inundating the Kfar Ata and Kiryat Bialik residential and industrial suburbs.
Experts said it would take days before the waters subside sufficiently to allow householders to return home and begin the drying-out process.
Many residents have taken temporary shelter with friends or relatives. Others are living in hotel rooms at the expense of local town councils.
The process of recovering from the storm has been complicated by the appearance of snakes, some venomous, in residential areas of Haifa. Zoologists say the reptiles were driven from their habitats by flooding and sought refuge in urban gardens.
At least one snake-bite victim was treated at Rambam Hospital on Thursday.
The police meanwhile were urging motorists not to drive to Jerusalem, which is digging out of its worst snowstorm in this century.
Although the main highways from the coast have been cleared, mammoth traffic jams developed at the entrance to the city because most parking areas are still buried under snow.
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