Jay Slater: Photographs show Tenerife property where missing British teenager was last seen
Photographs show the Tenerife property where British teenager Jay Slater is believed to have been last seen before he went missing on Monday.
A Snapchat video shared by the 19-year-old on Sunday night appears to show the property he visited in the northwestern mountain village of Masca after attending the NRG music festival.
Mr Slater, from Oswaldtwistle near Blackburn in Lancashire, was holidaying with friends on the island before he went missing.
The property where Jay Slater is believed to have been last seen
His friend Lucy Law told Wednesday’s UK Tonight programme on Sky News that she spoke to Mr Slater on the phone at about 8.15am local time on Monday.
During the short phone call, he told her he had missed a bus trying to get back to his holiday accommodation so was attempting to walk instead – a journey that would take 11 hours.
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Missing British teen’s friend speaks to Sky News
She said he told her he had “cut his leg on a cactus“, didn’t know where he was and his mobile phone battery was down to 1%.
Ms Law also said Mr Slater told her he “needed a drink”.
He was able to send her his last live location which showed as the Rural de Teno Park – a mountainous area popular with hikers – before his phone cut out.
Ms Law said Mr Slater, an apprentice bricklayer, is “not a stupid boy” and would have flagged down any passing car or spoken to a passerby.
Soon after Mr Slater went missing, an American woman offered to drive Ms Law up into the mountains.
There was “literally no sign of him anywhere”, she said. “We drove around all day.”
Ms Law added that they “managed to find the house” where Mr Slater was last seen.
She continued: “I knocked on the door and there were two people there.”
The property where Jay Slater is believed to have been last seen
They told Ms Law that Mr Slater had gone out for a cigarette before going back in and saying he wanted to go home.
“They told me he’d spoken to the next door neighbours and they’d told him there was a bus every 10 minutes back down to Los Cristianos.
“The bus stop was right next to the house. So obviously if he’d gone to get the bus he wouldn’t have got lost because it [the stop] was visible from the front door.”
Jay Slater’s phone’s last live location was Rural de Teno Park. The search has also focused on Los Cristianos
The teenager was wearing a T-shirt and shorts and was without food and water, she added.
“It’s very warm in the day and very cold at night,” Ms Law said.
“So in the day he’s going to be really warm without a drink, and then at night he’s going to be very cold without any suitable clothing.”
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Pic: Lucy Law
A rescue team searches the Masca ravine. Pic: Reuters
Earlier, she told the Manchester Evening News someone Mr Slater had met on the night out had driven him back to their apartment in a hire car without him realising how far away it was.
“He’s ended up out in the middle of nowhere. Jay was obviously thinking he would be able to get home from there,” she told the newspaper.
‘A living nightmare’
Mr Slater’s mother Debbie Duncan, who flew to the island and has joined mountain rescuers and the local civil guard in the search for her son, has called his disappearance “an absolute living nightmare”.
Search teams refocused their efforts on Thursday in the north of Tenerife, where Rural de Teno Park is located, after discounting a potential lead in the south of the island, the BBC reported.
Meanwhile, a Tenerife-based journalist said today is a “key day” in the search for Mr Slater.
Clio O’Flynn told Sky News: “If he’s taken shelter, the hope is he’s waiting for help to come along,”
She added: “The problem will be ‘does he have a phone signal? Will people be able to locate him? Can he hear their cries?'”
Police officers search the Masca ravine. Pic: Reuters
Ms O’Flynn said the search had been “very intense” with teams using all the resources at their disposal, including “mountain specialists, search dogs, drones and helicopters” and are “taking suggestions from his family, so it’s very coordinated”.
The area where he is believed to have gone missing is a “dry, arid, part of the island”, and, given its volcanic origins, has “ravines and gullies”, Ms O’Flynn said.
She warned there are “no lakes, rivers or streams, so it would be quite hard for him to access fresh water”.
Temperatures have been about 26C (79F), she said, but warned that “if you’re lost, 25C is very hot”.
A UK Foreign Office spokesperson said: “We are supporting the family of a British man who has been reported missing in Spain and are in contact with the local authorities.”
The Spanish Civil Guard told UK media they are “doing everything possible” to find Mr Slater.
Israel has approved a plan to capture all of the Gaza Strip and remain there for an unspecified length of time, Israeli officials say.
According to Reuters, the plan includes distributing aid, though supplies will not be let in yet.
The Israeli official told the agency that the newly approved offensive plan would move Gaza’s civilian population southward and keep humanitarian aid from falling into Hamas’s hands.
On Sunday, the United Nations rejected what it said was a new plan for aid to be distributed in what it described as Israeli hubs.
Israeli cabinet ministers approved plans for the new offensive on Monday morning, hours after it was announced that tens of thousands of reserve soldiers are being called up.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has so far failed to achieve his goal of destroying Hamas or returning all the hostages, despite more than a year of brutal war in Gaza.
Palestinian children struggle to get donated food at a community kitchen in Khan Younis, Gaza. Pic: AP
Officials say the plan will help with these war aims but it would also push hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to southern Gaza, exacerbating an already dire humanitarian crisis.
They said the plan included the “capturing of the strip and the holding of territories”.
It would also try to prevent Hamas from distributing humanitarian aid, which Israel says strengthens the group’s rule in Gaza.
The UN rejected the plan, saying it would leave large parts of the population, including the most vulnerable, without supplies.
It said it “appears designed to reinforce control over life-sustaining items as a pressure tactic – as part of a military strategy”.
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IDF reservists call for end to war in Gaza
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More than 52,000 Palestinians have been killed since the IDF launched its ground offensive in the densely-populated territory, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.
It followed the deadly Hamas attacks on Israel, which killed 1,200 people and saw around 250 people taken hostage.
A fragile ceasefire that saw a pause in the fighting and the exchange of Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners collapsed earlier this year.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to retaliate against the Houthis and their Iranian “masters” after the group launched a missile attack on the country’s main international airport.
A missile fired by the group from Yemen landed near Ben Gurion Airport, causing panic among passengers in the terminal building.
“Attacks by the Houthis emanate from Iran,” Mr Netanyahu wrote on X. “Israel will respond to the Houthi attack against our main airport AND, at a time and place of our choosing, to their Iranian terror masters.”
Israeli police officers investigate the missile crater. Pic: Reuters
The missile impact left a plume of smoke and briefly halted flights and commuter traffic at the airport. Some international carriers have cancelled flights to and from Tel Aviv for several days.
Four people were lightly wounded, paramedic service Magen David Adom said.
Air raid sirens went off across Israel and footage showed passengers yelling and rushing for cover.
The attack came hours before senior Israeli cabinet ministers were set to vote on whether to intensify the country’s military operations in the Gaza Strip, and as the army began calling up thousands of reserves in anticipation of a wider operation in the enclave.
Houthi military spokesperson Brigadier General Yahya Saree said the group fired a hypersonic ballistic missile at the airport.
Iran’s defence minister later told a state TV broadcaster that if the country was attacked by the US or Israel, it would target their bases, interests and forces where necessary.
Israel’s military said several attempts to intercept the missile were unsuccessful.
Air, road and rail traffic were halted after the attack, police said, though it resumed around an hour later.
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Yemen’s Houthis have been firing missiles at Israel since its war with Hamas in Gaza began on 7 October 2023, and while most have been intercepted, some have penetrated the country’s missile defence systems and caused damage.
Israel has previously struck the group in Yemen in retaliation and the US and UK have also launched strikes after the Houthis began attacking international shipping, saying it was in solidarity with Palestinians over Israel’s war with Hamas.
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