A Russian tourist went missing in Israel on Saturday as he was swimming in the Mediterranean Sea.
"41-year-old Russian, in spite of a violent storm, decided to swim in the area of the Sironit beach in the city of Netanya and was carried away by the wave," The Police spokesman Alex Kagalsky told Itar-Tass.
According to the officer, the initial search proved unsuccessful. At dawn, the search operation would continue. The name of the tourist has not been reported, it is only known that rescuers were called by his friends who remained on the shore.
In recent days, the weather has sharply deteriorated in Israel as showers with strong winds have hit the country. The bad weather has also caused disruption in electric power supply in a number of areas of the country.
Netanya is a city in the northern centre district of Israel and is the capital of the surrounding Sharon plain. It is located 30 kilometres north of Tel-Aviv, and 56 kilometres south of Haifa between the 'Poleg' stream and Wingate institute in the south and the 'Avichail' stream in the north.
It is 14 kilometres (8.7 miles) of beaches have made the city a very popular tourist resort. The city houses a notably large population of english-speaking immigrants from the United Kingdom, the United States, and Canada.