
ISRAEL ANSWERS THE CALL AGAIN: Aid Teams Rush to Flood-Ravaged Nepal
Israel didn’t waste any time sending a team to Nepal after devastating floods Wednesday and Thursday killed nearly 400 people, with more than 1,000 still missing.
IsraAID, a humanitarian aid organization providing urgent relief during global crises and natural disasters, dispatched a team to Nepal, saying it will focus on distributing emergency relief supplies and providing mental health and protection services to areas affected by the flood. The team is expected to arrive Thursday.
“We are devastated to see the scenes unfolding in Nepal as entire communities have been destroyed by flash flooding and landslides and our thoughts are with everyone affected,” IsraAID CEO Yotam Polizer said.
“I personally led IsraAID’s mission to Nepal after the earthquake in 2015 and have seen firsthand the strength, resilience, and beauty of these communities. We will do everything we can to bring urgent support where it is needed most.”
In 2015, IsraAID deployed to Nepal following a massive earthquake and remained there for several years, until 2019, providing mental health care and protection to more than 600,000 people.
NATAN Worldwide Disaster Relief is also sending a team.
“NATAN volunteers, medical and mental health professionals who leave their daily routines at a moment’s notice, are arriving in Nepal to provide medical and psychosocial care to survivors and to strengthen local healthcare systems,” said Gil Reines, Chair of NATAN’s Executive Board. “Precisely at a community’s moment of crisis, we are there to extend a hand, stand behind them, and walk alongside them on the path toward recovery.”
An Israeli tourist who is also missing is a policyholder with the Harel Insurance Company, which is also dispatching a team of eight search-and-rescue workers. The team will depart on Thursday and search for the man in his sixties and the group he was hiking with in the Rasuwa region, near the Nepal-China border.
The collapse of a glacier in the Himalayas led to the landslides and flash floods at the Nepal-Tibet border. It was initially believed to be caused by an earthquake because the glacier caused an impact that registered a magnitude of 5.2 when it struck the bottom of the valley, causing “subsequent catastrophic impacts downstream,” according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
The USGS said that the ensuing floodwaters coursed about 62 miles downstream through the Trishuli and Bhote Koshi rivers, forming a towering wall of mud and rock that swept homes, buildings, and roads into oblivion.
This disaster marks the third time Israel has rushed aid to a region suffering catastrophic destruction and loss from natural disasters. In July, a team of rescue workers deployed to Venezuela after two massive earthquakes rocked the country. In August, a team called the “Alliance of Brothers” rushed to Colombia to find the missing after an earthquake as well, finding every last missing person at the sites where it had deployed.