As the death toll in Turkey and Syria from a pair of devastating earthquakes crosses 12,000 on Wednesday, Israel is stepping up rescue efforts alongside dozens of other countries in a race against time and freezing temperatures to find additional survivors.
“Already on [Monday] evening, the first advance team arrived to the site,” Israeli Ambassador Irit Lillian told The Algemeiner in an interview Wednesday. “Unlike in previous natural disasters that have occurred in Turkey, this time the [Turkish] Minister of Interior moved immediately after the announcement of the earthquake and said ‘we will need international assistance.’”
Once that request was made, Israel moved to send a team that they had already begun assembling “within minutes” of hearing of the scale of the disaster. So far, that team includes 150 people from the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and Ministry of Foreign Affairs, led by Israeli Ambassador David Saranga. The Israeli government said Wednesday that an additional 230 medical personnel and tons of medical equipment sent on 15 planes had arrived in the area that evening.
“In the last 24 hours since the rescue delegation arrived to the scene, they have already rescued five people,” Saranga said at a press conference Wednesday. “If you are not there you cannot even imagine the tragedy. I was walking in neighborhoods in which half of the buildings are collapsed. They were totally destroyed.”
