Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Breaking News

Israeli Tourist Dies in Peru Zip Line Tragedy

An Israeli backpacker has died in an extreme adventure accident in the Peruvian city of Cusco.

Orel Guetta, 24, of Kfar Saba, fell to his death after a cable malfunctioned on the Tarzan pendulum attraction, which swings riders along a canyon from a harness more than 300 feet in the air.

His body was taken to the SOS clinic, where two friends identified him.

After having completed his Israeli military service, Guetta like many young Israelis was celebrating his entry into civilian life by backpacking on a months-long trip to South America. He and his two friends had already visited Argentina and Brazil; they had intended to head back home in July.

Guetta had contacted his family on Sunday and said, “Cuzco is the most beautiful place on Earth.” Israel’s Foreign Ministry is working with the Israeli Embassy in Lima to repatriate the body back to Israel.

Last April, a 24-year-old Israeli, Max Sela from Shoham, died in a similar accident in the South American country. Sela, a former commander in the IDF’s Engineering Corps, died when he fell from a zip-line ramp in the popular tourist destination Machu Picchu.

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning journalism this Passover.

In this age of misinformation, our work is needed like never before. We report on the news that matters most to American Jews, driven by truth, not ideology.

At a time when newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall. That means for the first time in our 126-year history, Forward journalism is free to everyone, everywhere. With an ongoing war, rising antisemitism, and a flood of disinformation that may affect the upcoming election, we believe that free and open access to Jewish journalism is imperative.

Readers like you make it all possible. Right now, we’re in the middle of our Passover Pledge Drive and we still need 300 people to step up and make a gift to sustain our trustworthy, independent journalism.

Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly. 

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Only 300 more gifts needed by April 30

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.