(Adds fourth body found, quotes)

JERUSALEM, May 12 (Reuters) - A flash flood killed four Israeli hikers on Saturday near the biblical Dead Sea in the occupied West Bank, Israeli rescue services said.

The flood, which swept over a portion of a main highway along the frontier with neighbouring Jordan, was caused by a rare spring cloudburst in parts of Israel and the Palestinian territory.

Israeli army helicopters and Magen David Adom rescue service medics launched searches after reports that 11 hikers abseiling down a cliff in the Judean Desert had got stuck because of a flash flood in the Qumran river bed, to the east of Jerusalem.

Yeroham Mendola, a spokesman for Magen David Adom, said rescue workers found the bodies of four hikers -- three men and a woman in their 20s -- in the river bed. Ambulances brought the bodies to Jerusalem for burial, Mendola said.

Yinon Yerushalmi, a rescue worker at the scene, told Israel's Army Radio: "All four were attached to the same rope. When the flood began, it dragged them all down together."

"I've lived here for a while and I've never seen such a strong flood," Yerushalmi said.

Seven other hikers were rescued safely, he added.

The Dead Sea area has been prone to flash floods in the past because it is located several hundred of metres (yards) below sea level. But heavy rains are rare in spring in the arid Middle East where most precipitation falls in winter.

AlertNet news is provided by