NBC: Israel offers 'model' for emergency care
Friday, January 22, 2010
By: ICEJ News

ICEJ underwrites ZAKA search and rescue efforts

The United Nations has described the unfolding tragedy in Haiti as the worst disaster it has ever had to face, as current estimates place the death toll at over 100,000 people in the area around Port-au-Prince devastated by last week’s massive quake.

In the midst of this horrific suffering, as members of the international community unite in bringing humanitarian aid to the quake zone, the Israeli emergency teams dispatched to Haiti last week have shone above all others for their efficiency and compassion.

NBC Nightly News: Israeli Field Hospital a Model for Crisis Care

The Israeli relief teams include units from the IDF Home Front Command, Magen David Adom, IsraAID and ZAKA, who were all among the first to arrive in Port-au-Prince after the 7.0 earthquake.

The 200-member IDF contingent landed on two transport planes, quickly commandeered a soccer field in the center of town and set up a field hospital complete with the only surgical ward in the crisis area. Israeli doctors have had the medical equipment to perform complex surgeries, complemented by diagnostic computer tools and the only reliable wireless Internet connection in the theatre, enabling them to transmit images via one of Israel’s Amos satellites to colleagues back home so that specialists can be consulted in real time.

The IDF facilities have been hailed by other medical teams as a “model” for mobile field hospitals in future, while journalists covering the disaster have gravitated to the site in order to file their stories via the wireless connections.

To date, 383 people have been treated in the Israeli hospital, including 140 life-saving operations and the delivery of seven babies, highlighted by one whose mother gratefully named her child “Israel.”

Meanwhile, the Israeli search-and-rescue teams aided by sniffer dogs have extracted more than a dozen survivors trapped under the rubble of collapsed buildings, the latest emerging on Tuesday into the arms of the IsraAID team, which has partnered with CBN's "Operation Blessing" in Haiti.

The six-man team from the ZAKA volunteer relief organization has distinguished itself in particular, managing to rescue eight students from the ruins of a collapsed university building in a gruelling 38-hour operation.

The work to relieve and restore the Haitian capital has just begun, and more Israeli emergency workers are still arriving to help in this task. These efforts need our urgent financial backing, and for Christians worldwide this presents a unique opportunity. We can not only help the desperate residents of Port-au-Prince, but we can also do so through the highly efficient and committed Israeli relief teams, thus bolstering the goodwill the Jewish nation is engendering amid this crisis.

The ICEJ is currently collecting donations to support the Haitian relief efforts through the Israeli organization ZAKA, a network of over 1,000 trained volunteer paramedics and other "first responders."

On Wednesday, the leadership of ZAKA was hosted at the ICEJ headquarters in Jerusalem, and was presented with a check for NIS 50,000 ($14,000), representing the initial funds collected from Christians around the world on their behalf. ZAKA plans to remain in Haiti in coming weeks to continue providing medical care, to assist with the identifcation of bodies and proper burials, and to distribute humanitarian aid. We urge you to support this effort!

Support Ongoing Israeli relief efforts in Haiti »