IDF and JDC Update Japan Relief Efforts
from the IDF:
An IDF Home Front Command and IDF Medical Corps delegation will depart for the Miyagi district in Japan on Saturday, March 26th 2011, at 23:00.
The delegation will consist of around fifty soldiers and officers including logistics teams, experts in the field of population management, Japanese translators, experts from the Committee of Atomic Energy, fourteen doctors specializing in different fields, seven nurses and nine paramedics. The teams will assist Japan’s rehabilitation efforts by providing various medical services and establishing a medical center manned by the IDF Home Front Command and IDF Medical Corps specialists.
This delegation joins the initial team of three officers who left for Japan on Saturday, March 19th, and prepared the framework for the delegation by informing them of the current situation and coordinating their arrival.
Last night (Thursday), a plane carrying approximately 36 tons of medical equipment departed Ben Gurion Airport for Japan. Overall, the delegation will carry 60 tons of medical aid and equipment.
from JDC:
As part of its continuous, on-the-ground response in Japan, the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) is now partnering with the Israel Defense Forces Field Hospital which will be operating in Minamisanriko. JDC – which previously supported IDF Field Hospitals in Haiti and Turkey – will be providing equipment such as an infant ventilator and portable ultrasound as well as life-saving antibiotics and other medications.
In the two weeks since Japan was struck, JDC has provided:
- food, fuel, blankets, tents, and other emergency supplies to evacuation centers through the International Rescue Committee;
- emergency supplies to the hardest-hit Miyagi and Fukushima prefectures through JEN, a Japanese NGO and the Jewish Community of Japan;
- learning materials, teaching aids, emergency school supplies, among other services at child-friendly spaces for Japanese children through the U.S. Fund for UNICEF/Japan Committee for UNICEF;
- a critically needed water shipment and other emergency relief supplies through JDC’s partner Afya Foundation and the Japanese International Cooperation Agency (JICA), Japan’s aid and development arm;
- food and water bottle distribution from Chabad’s bakery in Sendai.
updated March 27th (from the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs):
On Saturday night, 26 March, a shipment of aid from Israel was flown to Japan. The aid was organized jointly by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Defense and the Home Front Command.
A delegation of 50 people from the Home Front Command and the IDF Medical Corps will accompany 18 tons of aid that includes blankets, coats, gloves and portable toilets.
Israel is the one of the first states to send a medical team to Japan. Until now a few rescue teams from a limited number of countries have been operating in Japan, but no medical teams. The Home Front Command’s medical delegation will be stationed in the city of Kurihara, in the Miyagi prefecture about six hours north of Tokyo, an area which was hit hard by the tsunami. The plan is to set up a field clinic to treat the wounded and refugees concentrated in that area. All of the arrangements for the medical team’s arrival and operation vis-à-vis the Japanese authorities are being coordinated by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Israeli embassy in Tokyo.
The aid shipment of essential items (10,000 coats, 6,000 blankets, 8,000 pairs of gloves and 150 portable toilets) was coordinated by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, according to the request of the Japanese National Disaster Center, and sent in cooperation with the Ministry of Defense.
Japan noted that Israel is one of the first countries to send aid as per the needs and request of the Japanese.