Only 11 Israelis still unaccounted for in Nepal

The Foreign Ministry announced Tuesday afternoon that 11 Israelis believed to have been in Nepal when a devastating earthquake struck have yet to make contact, down from an assessment that put that number at 50 earlier in the day.

The massive earthquake on Saturday killed at least 4,438 people, with Nepalese authorities assessing that the death toll could rise as high as 10,000.

Two hundred and twenty-nine Israelis landed at Ben Gurion Airport early Tuesday afternoon, escaping the ongoing devastation in Kathmandu and the surrounding area. Among them were 15 surrogate-born children to Israeli parents.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met Tuesday with Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon, Interior Minister Gilad Erdan, Foreign Ministry Director Nissim Ben-Shitrit and representatives of the army and rescue services to discuss the ongoing situation in Nepal.

The prime minister opened the discussion, according to a statement, by telling the representatives that Israel’s mission was twofold. “Our first effort is to find and rescue those Israelis who remain in distress in Nepal and allow them to return safely to Israel,” he said.

“In tandem, we are setting up a field hospital in Nepal to assist the Nepalese in their hardship,” he said.

Israeli rescue workers in Nepal pressed on with efforts to reach Israeli tourists still stranded in remote areas. To assist in that effort, the Nepalese government allocated a military helicopter.

Israeli Ambassador to Nepal Yaron Meir told Israel Radio that two helicopters were engaged in a search for over 60 Israeli hikers in the remote Langtang National Park.

Earlier, a second group of 10 Israeli backpackers was rescued in the Everest area near the Tibetan border by a rescue team sent by Phoenix, an Israeli insurance company, Channel 2 reported. Four Israelis had already been rescued from the slopes of Mount Everest, where they had been trapped in the wake of the earthquake, on Monday.

The Foreign Ministry of Affairs reported that two Israelis, Aviv Rosen and Yonatan Molko, had refused to be evacuated. No reason was provided.

Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman said that additional staff from Israeli embassies in nearby countries would be sent to Kathmandu as soon as conditions permit.

Liberman called his Nepalese counterpart, Bahadur Pandey, on Tuesday and offered his condolences. Pandey thanked Liberman for assistance and said the Nepalese people appreciated the help provided by Israel, the Foreign Ministry said.

Liberman thanked Pandey for the cooperation of Nepalese authorities in making possible the use of helicopters to search for Israeli hikers stranded in remote locations. According to the Foreign Ministry, Pandey gave Liberman permission to use helicopters hired by Israel from India and China to rescue stranded Israelis.

The Foreign Ministry said that some locals were “thronging” the helicopters, “complicating the rescue efforts.”

On Monday evening, an IDF plane carrying Israelis doctors, search and rescue teams and other aid personnel landed in Kathmandu, and the medical team was working to set up a field hospital in the quake-struck capital. An additional four planes arrived on Tuesday.