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Israel Defense Forces Begin Their First Day in Haiti "Hell"
By
Joel Leyden Jerusalem ---- January 16, 2010…… Living in Israel and being an Israeli soldier one sees things that no human should. Yes, we go through months of extensive combat training, and yes we know exactly what to do when we come under fire. But nothing, nothing could prepare any soldier from Israel from the sheer horror and suffering that they are now witnessing in Haiti. This small and poor Caribbean nation was slammed by a devastating 7.0 magnitude earthquake. The center of this severe quake erupted just a few miles south of the densely populated capital of Port-au-Prince. It was a cruel act of nature which would flatten this tiny nation and leave no part untouched. Over 70,000 thousand people have been buried and it is expected that the total number of fatalities will reach over 200,000. An unending blanket of twisted corpses now line the once picturesque Palm tree lined streets. Haitians wander the death stench filled streets seeking shelter from a blistering sun, searching for food and water. If lucky, the living and wounded will find their way to a football stadium. Normally this stadium would be a center of smiles, laughter and cheers. Today it where the Israel Defense Forces have established one of the largest mobile emergency hospitals ever created. A place of
tears, but not for these IDF troops.
By 10 a.m. this morning local time this Israel hospital made from white tents was treating dozens of patients. The IDF field hospital in Haiti, set up in extreme heat and humid weather, has enough equipment and supplies to function for about two weeks. The 121-member medical team includes 40 doctors including a psychiatrist, 20 nurses, 20 paramedics and medics, 20 lab and x-ray technicians and administrators. They are treating
an endless line of bleeding babies, children, men and women. Combat soldiers are trained to become desensitized. That is how they are able to pull the trigger with true precision in a firefight. But this is no firefight. Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Hezbollah hide behind green and black ski masks. The Haitian children do not hide their tears, nor do their parents. One can only think of 9/11 for comparison. But even this area was limited to downtown Manhattan from Canal Street south. The difference between Haiti and the fallen World Trade Center Towers is that all one had to do was take a subway north and you would be in another world. A clean city with open restaurants, movies, stores and people smiling. These soldiers
from Israel came to Haiti with much anticipation of hard and rewarding
work awaiting them. Israel Lt.-Col Dr. Itzik Reiss described the scene to those in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and Haifa as one with children suffering from severe fractures as they arrived on makeshift cardboard stretchers for treatment. Many had limbs amputated due to severe gangrene, he said. Within a few hours of this IDF field hospital being constructed, operations were performed. The hospital has an emergency room, internal medicine, pediatric, orthopedic, obstetrics and surgery departments, clinics and other facilities. Patients started arriving after a local hospital unable to function normally announced that the Jews, that Israel had a hospital up and working - if they could make the walk. Petrol has become scarce in Haiti.
One need not see the disaster movie 2012, just a few hours of watching live TV reports from Haiti would be more than enough. Those journalists reporting from Haiti are the most edgy that we have ever seen. They have no comfort zone nor luxurious hotels to escape to after they perform their standups and rehearsed reports. They know that only worse is to come as food and water still have not been distributed properly throughout this Island of sweat, blood and tears. Of all the
medical, search and rescue personnel on site in Haiti, none could
be as prepared as those from Israel. But these
Hebrew speaking men and women in yellow helmets are still very
much human beings. If Israel has ever had a group of true heroes, they are the men and women now in Haiti. Not so much for working in an environment of earthquake after shocks which can and will collapse more buildings, exposed electric lines and diseases now beginning to spread. There is no Tiberius or Tel Aviv beach to escape to for a few hours. Only the stench of death, the endless wailing cries of the wounded and a flood of tears of so many lost families to engulf our men and women in green. We need to pray for them. We need to send our own relief teams after a week. We need to meet these soldiers at Ben Gurion Airport upon their safe return with warm embraces, long talks and tissues to catch the tears that cannot fall today. They left
their warm homes to save the lives of strangers thousands of miles
away. To allow them to cry, to hurt and to feel a clean breeze once again. A Web 2.0, social networking group has been opened by Internet cyber volunteers on Facebook at Israel4Haiti.com. The Facebook group - Haiti Earthquake 2010 - Israel Humanitarian Aid - was originally designed to send messages of support to the people of Haiti, post pictures and information from the IDF and the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs in order to locate missing Israelis in Haiti. Today, we must also use this Website to send messages of love, respect and support to our men and women in uniform.
The Israel News Agency, which is accredited by Israel Government Press Office, was the first on line news organization in Israel. The INA reaches up to 60 million readers through Google News and Internet social networking channels such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube from New York, London, Moscow and Paris to Toronto, Los Angeles, China and India. Leyden is presently launching the United States News Agency using the INA as a successful working model.
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