The body of a 22-year-old Palestinian student, Aya Na'amneh, was found on Sunday, August 18, 2019, in an Ethiopian desert near where she went missing a day earlier, Arab 48 news reported. 

Aya Na'amneh of the northern town of Arraba was part of a delegation of students from Haifa’s Technion Institute of Technology who were visiting the Danakil Desert in Ethiopia, where she was separated from the group and went missing.

Authorities were alerted to Aya's disappearance after she failed to arrive at a gathering point.

The Palestinian Foreign Ministry said in a statement that Aya seems to have fallen and died in the same area. Helicopters, drones, search and rescue crews, police and military forces in Ethiopia were involved in the search process.

Na'amneh's father, Salim, received the news of her death as he was set to take off to Ethiopia and he was taken off the plane.

"I would have wanted to return to my family with my daughter, but unfortunately we received the worst news ever, which we were hoping not to get. I would have wanted to hear her voice and hug her, rather than return without my wonderful daughter," Aya's father said.