Severe weather pounds Israel, one man dead

Intense weather hit Israel on Sunday, killing a man, flooding major highways and wreaking havoc in multiple cities.

Tennis ball-size hailstones battered central Israel, smashing car windows, while strong winds knocked off construction cranes in Tel Aviv, the country's trade capital, and the nearby city of Netanya.

Torrents of rain flooded highways and neighborhoods across the country and blocked all entries to the southern resort city of Eilat.

Recurrent power outages were reported throughout the day and by the evening, tens of thousands of houses were still without electricity due to malfunctions, Channel 2 TV news reported.

"The electricity network was harmed in several locations around the country, and there are electricity outages on and off," a spokesperson for the Israel Electric Corporation said in a statement.

"Israel Electric Corporation workers are in the field to pinpoint and fix the cables in the electricity network," the statement added.

Rescue services said a 20-year-old construction worker was killed in a town 60 km north of Tel Aviv, after a concrete wall collapsed on him due to the rainstorms and windstorms.

Elsewhere, trees collapsed, including one that fell over a vehicle, causing serious injuries to one of the passengers. At least six others were injured due to the bad weather.

Israel Meteorological Service reported wind speed of about 100 kilometers (about 62 miles) per hour. A statement by the service said the storm was "unusual" for this time of the year, adding that rains are expected to continue on Monday.

Heavy storms raging through the region killed six people in Egypt and flooded the streets of Lebanon's Beirut with a mix of garbage and rainwaters amidst a three-month-long trash crisis. Endit