IDF aid mission leaves for Philippines with 100 tons of supplies
The 147-member group is tasked with setting up a field hospital to treat casualties of devastating typhoon
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An IDF delegation departed on a humanitarian mission to the Philippines Wednesday morning to provide aid to the storm-ravaged city of Daanbantayan, in the northern province of Cebu.
The 147-member group, comprising national search-and-rescue unit officials and senior doctors in the IDF medical corps, will be tasked with rapidly setting up a “multi-department medical facility” to provide medical care for casualties of the disaster.
The facility will have children’s, women’s and ambulatory care departments, as well as a general admission department, and will be “equipped with approximately 100 tons of humanitarian and medical supplies from Israel.”
An IDF assessment team of six medical and logistics experts, including four representatives from the IDF’s Home Front Command and two from the Foreign Ministry, left Israel Sunday to find an optimal location for the field hospital.
The IDF tweeted several updates and pictures as its team prepared to leave for the mission.
Soldiers packing the #IDF field hospital as they prepare for rescue mission in #Philippines. #IDFinPhilippines pic.twitter.com/QEyeHAfyOf
— IDF Rescue (@IDFrescue) November 13, 2013
#IDF commanders planning field hospital while waiting to board plane for #Philippines #IDFinPhilippines pic.twitter.com/FV8tluocIv
— IDF Rescue (@IDFrescue) November 13, 2013
#IDF Medical Corps Officer: The #Philippines asked for help & our goal is to provide the necessary aid to its people pic.twitter.com/yudFJFuXPK
— IDF Rescue (@IDFrescue) November 13, 2013
The death toll from the typhoon, which made landfall in the central Philippines on Friday, could be at least 10,000, according to reports, though the official death toll currently stands at more than 2,200. At least half a million people also have been left homeless by the devastating typhoon.
Both President Shimon Peres and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu extended their sympathies to the President Benigno Aquino of the Philippines. “We are following with much concern the horrifying effects of the storm and hope that the aid provided by the State of Israel will help ease the suffering of the people of the Philippines,” Peres wrote. “From Jerusalem, we wish you strength and fortitude.”
An emergency response team sent to the Philippines by the Israeli disaster relief organization IsraAid to the areas hardest hit by Typhoon Haivan arrived Monday to work primarily in Tacloban City in Leyte, one of the areas hardest-hit by the typhoon.
The Times of Israel Community.