Angst and anger in Langtang

Israeli rescue efforts in Nepal and the return of the first planeload of tourists returning from the quake-ravaged nation continue to dominate the Hebrew media landscape Wednesday morning, though internal coalition battles, and fears of upcoming battles with classic enemies, creep onto front pages as well.

Papers highlight the joy of reunited families in the wake of the disaster, juxtaposed with the concern of those who still don’t know where their loved ones are amid the ruins of the country, where officials said Tuesday the death toll could rise as high as 10,000.

Pictures of Orit Asraf holding a sign at Ben-Gurion Airport Tuesday asking if anybody has information about her missing son Or play as the symbol of the families who are forced to hope for the best without hearing from their loved ones.

Yedioth describes a scene as one trekker returning from Nepal turned to Asraf’s father Patrick saying he saw Or.

“Patrick tenses, hoping that he’s finally gotten a signal of life, but much to his dismay, it turns out the young man met his son only before the trek he took” before he disappeared, the paper reports.

Given what the returning tourists describe, it’s easy to understand the parents’ concern. “It’s hard to describe what we went through, it was scary,” says one backpacker who was in the Frozen Lakes region of Langtang National Park when the quake hit, sending a boulder careening toward her that stopped just short.

In Haaretz, other backpackers describe scenes of dwindling food supplies and large numbers of fatalities. “There’s no doubt that whoever isn’t saved very soon won’t make it. There is a serious threat to their lives,” one says.

But the quake wasn’t the only danger the Israel backpackers faced. The paper also reports on a battle that took place between rescuers and Nepalese locals after a helicopter arrived to spirit the Israelis out of the remote mountain area.

“The villagers demanded that they should be evacuated first, threatened the Israelis and rushed the helicopter,” Yedioth reports. “One of the Nepalese was killed when his head was hit by the rotor and in another case several villagers grabbed the helicopter co-pilot and took him hostage to ensure they would be evacuated.”

The paper goes on to write that Nepalese army troops attempted to intervene but were unable to land because of harsh weather conditions, and that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu even got involved, suggesting to send the villagers aid in exchange for letting the Israelis go.

At the end, rescuers sent by Israeli insurance companies managed to extract the group and lead them on foot to a safer place where they were able to be evacuated, the paper reports.

However, rescuers in Kathmandu describe a totally different scene to the tabloid, of Israelis helping Nepalese and everybody getting along swimmingly. “We helped the Nepalese medically, bandaged them, and they were nice and brought us two kilos of rice and tons of lentils and potatoes,” one says.

Israel Hayom patriotically describes the scene of Israeli soldiers in their work uniforms, setting up a massive field hospital in Kathmandu with the blue and white flapping in the Himalayan wind. At the same time, the paper reports, rescuers made their first forays into the ruins of buildings to search for survivors.

“We are working in complete darkness, everyone is going around with headlamps, heading out with delicate medical equipment,” one rescuers tells the paper. “The goal is to find as many as possible injured and sick. We don’t have the luxury to enjoy ourselves, we are looking around and seeing people buried under houses, injured people going around on the streets, women and children and the elderly and nobody taking care of them.”

The paper’s Boaz Bismuth uses his column space to rain on the parade of those Israelis who were in Nepal to receive babies from surrogate mothers, and who were whisked away and are now able to live life with their newborns far from the devastation.

“Let’s remember for a moment that an earthquake is a trauma, a kind of atom bomb, which fell upon a country and hurt mostly children. While we are breathing a sigh over the return of the babies to their homes, we need to remember that 2.8 million Nepali children were hurt directly or indirectly by the earthquake in Nepal, according to UNICEF numbers. Children find themselves suddenly with no home, no parents, without anything. It’s a sure trauma for their whole lives,” he writes.

In Haaretz, Avshalom Halutz also takes issue with the coverage of the gay Israeli fathers returning with their babies to a hero’s welcome, which he compares to scenes of Israelis triumphantly returning from the hostage crisis in Entebbe. But the embrace whitewashes the heterogeneousness of the gay community in Israel, he says.

“Israel is now offering a warm welcome to a very specific part of the community — the part that provides smiling copies of heterosexual and mainstream family structures. … Is everyone who accepts gay surrogacy also willing to accept the gay bars, the wild parties, the apps for one-night stands, the drag queens, the butch lesbians and the transgenders?” he asks.

Hey-la, hey-la, my terror group military wing leader’s back

While some of the army is off in Nepal helping with rescue efforts, those left behind here are apparently gearing up for yet another fight as Hamas’s elusive military leader seems to have returned from the dead yet again. Haaretz reports that Mohammed Deif, thought killed during a strike over the summer, is alive and back at work planning attacks on Israel.

The paper, citing “Israeli and Palestinian assessments,” writes that Hamas launched the summer war to put the plight of Gaza back on the international agenda, with a plan devised by Deif to raid Israel, kidnap Israelis and use them as a bargaining chip to end the blockade of the Strip.

Though the plan never came to fruition fully, the paper reports that Hamas leaders are once again plotting to give it another go.

“The efforts of Hamas’s military wing are now focused on drafting fighters and rebuilding battalions, mainly in the areas of Beit Hanun, Shejaiyeh and Khan Yunis, which were hard hit during the fighting. New attempts are also being made to dig both attack and logistical tunnels,” the broadsheet reports. “The rebuilding of the tunnels is underway around the clock, with a workforce of about 1,000 men. Construction materials come primarily from private individuals, who receive them to rebuild their homes, but because they lack the money to complete construction of their homes, they sell the material on the black market.”

With one war on the horizon, Netanyahu is looking to end another. Yedioth reports that the prime minister has all but signed deals with the Kulanu and UTJ factions, notching his first two partners with about a week to go before the clock runs out on his attempt to form a government.

The paper writes that bringing the ultra-Orthodox UTJ into the coalition will come at the cost of getting rid of several reforms implemented by former finance minister Yair Lapid, whose Yesh Atid party aimed to wrest power and pork away from the Haredi factions.

Among the rollbacks will be getting rid of sanctions on ultra-Orthodox draft dodgers, returning yeshiva budgets to pre-Lapid levels, freezing Jewish conversion reforms, undoing health system reforms championed by Yesh Atid health minister Yael German and putting money back into the kitty for unregistered ultra-Orthodox schools.

Unsurprisingly, Lapid is not pleased.

“We’re talking about a fire sale on everything important to Israeli citizens,” the paper quotes him saying angrily. “People will be able to continue not recognizing the state, and receive billions of shekels of taxpayer money without going to work.”