Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu convened an emergency meeting on Tuesday afternoon to assess the situation in Nepal.
Eleven Israelis are still unaccounted-for, down from 50 as of Tuesday morning.
The meeting was attended by Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon, Interior Minister Gilad Erdan, Foreign Ministry Director Nissim Ben Shitrit, Home Front Command commander Colonel Yoel Strick, MDA Director Eli Bin, and representatives of the Ministry of Justice and Ministry of Public Security.
Currently, Netanyahu said, “we are focusing on two efforts. The first is to locate and extract the Israelis in distress in Nepal and allow them a safe return to Israel. To this end, we continue in operational activities that we are coordinating with the government of Nepal and other organizations.”
“At the same time we are also setting up a field hospital in Nepal to help the people of Nepal during this time,” he added. “We operate under two principles – that all Israel is responsible for one another, and to provide humanitarian aid in Nepal as well as many other countries.”
Earlier Tuesday, an El-Al Boeing 747 landed in Ben-Gurion Airport, bringing with it 229 Israelis, including 15 infants, rescued from Nepal.
Magen David Adom immediately took two of the babies, born prematurely, to Schneider’s Children’s Hospital in Petach Tikva for incubation. One Israeli suffering a broken leg was transferred to hospital in Jerusalem.
