Israel sending IDF team to Florida to assist with tower collapse rescue efforts

Excellent. The IDF’s search and rescue units are perhaps the best in the world. Thank you, Israel.

A joint @IDF & @IsraelMFA aid delegation will depart tonight to assist at the destruction site in #Miami, USA, after the collapse of a residential building. pic.twitter.com/RD7Ua7MCrj

— Israel Foreign Ministry (@IsraelMFA) June 26, 2021

Israel sending IDF team to Florida to assist with tower collapse rescue efforts

Home Front Command delegation of 10 reservists to fly to Miami; Israel’s United Hatzalah to send psychological assistance team; Bennett speaks to governor and offers help

By Times of Israel, July 26, 2021

The Israel Defense Forces will send a search and rescue delegation to Florida to assist with rescue efforts following the Surfside residential building collapse that left at least four dead and nearly 160 still missing.

The team of Home Front Command soldiers will head to Florida following a series of talks over the weekend between Israeli defense officials and officials in Miami, the Defense Ministry said in a statement on Saturday night.

Defense Minister Benny Gantz said the move was approved in coordination with the Foreign Ministry.

“As with any national mission, the IDF and the defense establishment are ready to respond, act and assist. Every effort will be made to save lives, support the Jewish community and our friend the United States,” Gantz said.

Foreign Minister Yair Lapid said the sending of the delegation demonstrated the depth of friendship between the two nations.

“The State of Israel has no better friend than the United States, and the United States has no better friend than Israel. In such difficult moments, we stand with our American friends and the Jewish community in Florida,” Lapid said, according to the statement.

Illustrative: Israeli Home Front Command soldiers take part in a defense drill simulating a building collapse in the northern Israeli city of Tzfat, on September 7, 2020. (David Cohen/Flash90)

Golan Vach, a senior officer in the IDF’s Homefront Command, will head the delegation, which will be comprised of around ten reservists — experts in search and rescue efforts and in engineering, as well as in social care, the military said in a statement.

The team of soldiers that is part of the “Helping Hand” operation will fly out in the early hours of Sunday, the IDF announced.

“The mission of the delegation is to assist in the life-saving efforts by mapping the challenges at the site of the destruction, assisting the Jewish community and supporting the local rescue forces,” the IDF said.

Prime Minister Naftali Bennett spoke with Florida’s Governor Ron DeSantis on Saturday night to express his condolences, and said Israel would assist in any way needed.

“The United States is our greatest friend, and we stand by your side during this difficult time. We all pray for the safety of the wounded. I instructed all authorities in the Israeli government to assist in any way that may be required,” Bennett told DeSantis, according to a readout from the Prime Minister’s Office.

Nearly 160 people are still unaccounted for after the Champlain Towers South building in Surfside came down on Thursday.

Surfside is one of four small cities that together make up North Beach, the north end of Miami Beach, just east of the city of Miami. The area covers the top of a narrow stretch of land on the Atlantic Ocean. The area is more than a third Jewish.