A popular Israeli boy band singer has died after rescuing his five-year-old niece from drowning.

Amir Fryszer-Guttman, former lead singer of Hi Five, died after being taken to Haifa’s Rambam Medical Center, following the incident on Saturday.

The 41-year-old had dived into the sea when his niece and an adult family friend got into difficulty while swimming off a beach south of Haifa.

The singer held his niece above the water until she and the friend were rescued by nearby surfers.

But Mr Fryszer-Guttman was left in the water for nearly an hour and was not breathing when he himself was rescued .

Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said the singer “was treated at the scene by paramedics and rushed to an area hospital in serious condition”.

In a further tragic twist Mr Fryszer-Guttman, who was famous during the 1990s, was at the beach to celebrate a year since he was wrongly diagnosed with lymphoma.

In March 2016, he underwent months of chemotherapy before learning later that year he was suffering not from cancer, but from an inflammatory disease with similar symptoms.

The singer, who came out as gay and was a prominent LGBTQ rights advocate, released his own solo albums and starred in Israeli musicals after his band broke up in 2000.

His death has prompted widespread grief in Israel and a petition calling for a law legalising same-sex adoption to be named after him has attracted 80,000 signatures.

Mr Fryszer-Guttman had publicly criticised the Israeli government’s policy outlawing same-sex adoptions.

He is survived by a husband and a son.