Nine youths died Thursday after having been swept away by flash floods in southern Israel during a hiking trip near the Dead Sea, the Magen David Adom rescue service said.

Rescue efforts were ongoing to find a missing girl from a group of youths taking part in a programme to prepare them for military service, according to media reports.

Students in such programmes are usually around the age of 18.

A major rescue effort had earlier been launched to find what had initially been reported as several missing.

"Police & Emergency teams working together after flash floods struck the south of Israel near the Dead Sea where students were on a day trip," police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld tweeted.

Military helicopters took part in the search in an area known as the Tzafit Stream, which hikers frequent for its desert scenery.

Another police spokesman, Merav Lapidot, said on Israeli television that "instructions to avoid this type of drama" were not respected.

President Reuven Rivlin said on Twitter that "our thoughts go out to our brothers, our children and our loved ones who are dealing with a dramatic situation."

He also called on the public to "respect police instructions".

Two teenagers, a bedouin and a Palestinian girl, also died in a series of floods that hit Israel and the Palestinian territories on Wednesday, the first of three forecast days of heavy rain.

6 dead in Algeria floods
Algiers (AFP) April 26, 2018 - Six people including two children were killed in 48 hours as flash floods swept away their cars in heavy rainfall over northwest Algeria, rescue services announced Thursday.

Civil defence spokesman Colonel Farouk Achour told AFP the children and a man died when a wadi flooded late Wednesday in the Tiaret region, 330 kilometres (200 miles) southwest of Algiers.

One of the children was earlier reported as missing.

Three other people drowned on Tuesday night when a river burst its banks in El-Bayadh, 800 kilometres southwest of the capital.

Emergency services said they carried out several rescue operations for Tiaret residents stranded in their homes or cars and at a school in the neighbouring region of Tissemsilt.

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Two dead as floods hit Israel, West Bank
Jerusalem (AFP) April 25, 2018
Two teenagers died in a series of floods that hit Israel and the Palestinian territories on Wednesday, police said, the first of three forecast days of heavy rain. In the southern Israeli Negev desert, a 17-year-old Bedouin boy was swept away in a river before being found dead, police said. And east of Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank, a 17-year-old Palestinian girl was found dead after being taken by a current. The rainfall affected most of Israel, with many locations receiving dozens of ... read more