Five-Year-Old Boy Drowns at Delilah Beach in Ashkelon

A five-year-old boy from the city of Rahat drowned to death on Saturday near Delilah Beach in Ashkelon. The incident unfolded around midday, when the child disappeared from view in the water near the beach.

People at the scene spotted him coughing up water and unconscious, pulled him out, and called for help. Magen David Adom said its intensive care team happened to be nearby and reached the boy immediately.

Paramedics Steve Berman and Israel Logasi, יחד with medic Itzik Elmalich, said they found the child with no pulse and not breathing. “We saw citizens taking a child out of the water unconscious, without a pulse and without breathing, and calling for help,” they said. “We started immediately with life-saving treatment that included compressions, ventilation and medication, and evacuated him in an MDA intensive care ambulance while fighting for his life.”

The boy was taken to Barzilai Hospital in Ashkelon in critical condition, where staff moved him straight to the trauma bay and continued advanced resuscitation efforts. Doctors were unable to save him because of the long time he had spent underwater and the resulting multi-system injury, and they later pronounced him dead.