At the request of Venezuela’s government, the Israeli delegation sent recently to assist in rescue efforts will expand its operations to help develop a national reconstruction plan for areas devastated by the earthquake. Alongside dozens of delegation members working in the field, an additional team of about 20 experts has been established and is operating from Israel.
The Israel-based team is analyzing the situation on the ground and helping develop the reconstruction plan. The delegation’s work is receiving significant attention in Venezuela, including from senior government officials and local media. Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodríguez praised the Israeli delegation and described it as “a highly trained and professional team.”
According to Rodríguez, the delegation’s arrival was made possible through connections with Venezuela’s Jewish community, and she thanked “Rabbi Cohen for the coordination that enabled creating the connection with Israel’s government and bringing an expert team here.” She noted that the team has already begun implementing protocols for opening the infrastructure reconstruction process and assessing their condition, and that these are professionals with advanced capabilities who can locate survivors or voids beneath rubble even before reconstruction work begins.
Baruch Neidam, director of ZAKA’s international division, said the organization’s teams are deployed worldwide and arrive at every disaster zone where assistance is needed: “In Venezuela too, division members are working devotedly alongside local emergency forces, out of commitment to saving lives and helping every person, regardless of religion, nationality or origin.”
According to official figures released by Venezuela’s government, the death toll now stands at more than 2,954 people, while the fate of about 41,000 missing persons remains unknown. Within the chaos, some 30,000 rescuers from around the world are operating, including the Israeli aid delegation and ZAKA teams.
One of the moving stories from the field came from a ZAKA team commanded by Yossi Garmon, ZAKA commander for South America. In documentation from the scene, Garmon told of a son from a local family who requested the Israeli team’s help in extracting his mother’s body from a complex site, after all other agencies refused to enter it.
“He saw that we’re from Israel and said ‘come help, because no one wants to help us now,’” Garmon recounted. According to him, it was a very complex site from an engineering standpoint, long after the disaster. “There was a sharp smell. He begged all the other agencies and no one wanted to enter. He cried and said ‘you must.’”
ZAKA volunteers entered the site and after efforts succeeded in extracting the mother’s body. After the extraction, the son, a Christian by faith, said he had dreamed that Jews would come to help—and when he saw the volunteers with kippot, he understood the dream had come true.
At his request, an improvised and moving ceremony was held at the site, where the volunteers and family members recited Psalm 121, “A Song of Ascents.” “He sang with us and didn’t stop crying,” Garmon said. Although ZAKA volunteers don’t usually document such moments, the son insisted on filming the event. “He said: ‘I must let people know what Israel is.’ It was a moment of comfort for him.”
