By Tamar Eliav ~
When disaster threatens—acid-scouring earthquake, hurricane-wreaking destroyer, or refugee flight—on the horizon, one of the first flags to fly likely will be emblazoning a blue Star of David blazing in the center. Close behind its heels will come an Israeli medical relief team of physicians, nurses, paramedics, and logisticians armed not so much with cartons of equipment, as hope.
In the past three decades, Israel did this behind the scenes as the world’s fastest and most efficient suppliers of humanitarian health assistance to the world at large, activating volunteers within hours. Spurred on by the Jewish ethical vision of tikkun olam—maintaining and fixing the world—Israel’s healthcare providers are creating an boundless legacy.
Speed, Precision, and Compassion
Israel’s humanitarians’ reaction is characterized by speed. IsraAID Israeli soldiers and IDF Medical Corps reacted immediately to the 2023 Turkish and Syrian earthquake with field hospitals in 48 hours. Israeli soldiers, The Times of Israel reports, evacuated dozens of wounded civilians for treatment and rescued dozens buried under the rubble in Gaziantep and Kahramanmaraş.
“Missions outside of the country are not political, they’re human beings,” explains board-certified emergency physician and professional volunteer Dr. Talia Rotem, who has spent more than 15 years volunteering abroad. “We mend where there is injury, whosoever may be there.”
Healing the Wounds of War and Disaster
Emotional high-point of Israeli humanitarian diplomacy would have been Operation Good Neighbor, a clandestine yet enormous 2016-2018 operation in which Israel airlifted nearly 5,000 Syrian civilians to be treated for medical care, wounded children of the civil war included. Observed by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, the initiative involved evacuations to treatment, airdrop relief, and pediatricsurgery—all at night in the guise of an insurance policy against being targeted by recipients.
“Justice sentence in its best” is how Colonel (Res.) Dr. Noam Fink, IDF head medic, and one of the medics involved in the operation perceives the decision to evacuate the medical patients. “They were neighbors, and they needed our help. That was what mattered.”
Global NGOs
Aside from military action, nongovernmental organizations in Israel are a key source for action mobilization for medical humanitarian intervention.
IsraAID, Israel’s largest and leading humanitarian non-government organisation, has been working in more than 60 countries in emergency responses, treating trauma and building public health capacities. From treating Venezuelan refugees in Colombia to responding to the Sierra Leone Ebola outbreak, IsraAID field staff work with local counterparts to develop long-term sustainable health impacts. IsraAID operation in Ukraine involved emergency health response and psychosocial support to the forcibly displaced families during the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Save a Child’s Heart (SACH) is another serious charity. SACH is an Israel-based volunteer charity that airlifts Third World children to Israel for life-and-death heart surgery. Official figures announced by SACH show that the charity has carried out over 6,000 operations on children from 65 nations, including Iraq, Ethiopia, Zanzibar, and the Palestinian Territories.
“No. No borders in our ORs,” says SACH senior surgeon Lior Sasson. “Only a common goal to save lives.”
Training Tomorrow’s Healers
Israeli intervention is proactive and reactive. Israeli Agency for International Cooperation for Development, or MASHAV, provides medical training to physicians as well as to the health professionals of the Asian continent, African continent, and Latin American continent. MASHAV has already provided training to over 270,000 physicians in pandemics control and maternal health care.
Volunteers return home not just with new sets of skills but with healthy relationships and tactfulness too.
A Light in the Darkness
Top stories in the newspaper are all too frequently filled with brutality and violence in the Middle East, yet Israeli kindness to the world is a far different tale—a tale of reconciliation, peace, and commitment over time.
Their front pages usually don’t exist. They take place off the crisis page of the radar screen, in back-of-the-hill towns and back-of-the-shells hospitals, where there are usually one Israeli doctor to miles. But they leave a big impression on doctors and patients who experience them.
