IDF hospital in Nepal treats over 200
By Times of Israel staff
Israeli doctors perform 15 life-saving surgeries on wounded Nepalese; 2 helicopters set out to find last missing Israeli
A Nepalese boy is treated by an Israeli army medic at the Israeli field hospital in Kathmandu on April 30, 2015. (Photo credit: AFP/ MENAHEM KAHANA)
The Israeli field hospital in Nepal has treated over 200 patients since opening its doors Wednesday morning, with medical staff performing several complicated surgeries on wounded victims of Saturday’s 7.8-magnitude earthquake and doctors delivering three babies so far.
According to a statement released by the Foreign Ministry, 246 people were received at the IDF field hospital where doctors performed some 15 life-saving surgeries. Israeli medical staff were also assisting in local Nepalese hospitals, primarily in surgical departments, the ministry said.
Over 250 doctors and rescue personnel were part of an IDF delegation that arrived Tuesday in the Nepalese capital, Kathmandu, in the wake of Saturday’s earthquake that devastated large swaths of the mountainous country.
The Israeli group — the second largest in manpower of any international aid team after India — set up the field hospital with 60 beds, including an obstetrics department, and was operating in coordination with the local army hospital.
In Israel on Friday, 150 Nepalese agriculture students at Kinneret College on the Sea of Galilee held a ceremony to commemorate their countrymen and women who died in the earthquake, Israel Radio reported. The ceremony was attended by the Nepalese ambassador to Israel and college staff. Several of the students have not yet been able to make contact with their families in Nepal since the natural disaster hit, according to the report.
Meanwhile, search efforts resumed Friday morning for Or Asraf, Israel’s last missing national who was last heard from before Saturday’s earthquake.
Two helicopters set out Friday for the Langtang area where Asraf was traveling when the quake hit. Rescue teams were on board both choppers.
Asraf’s father joined the search team on Thursday morning — five days after the trekker went missing in the wake of the earthquake — but poor weather forced them to end the day’s search by Thursday afternoon, Israel Radio reported.
Asraf promised to find his son and bring him home.
“I will come back to Israel with Or. I will stay here until I find him,” Patrick Asraf told NRG. He expressed a fear that his son may be hurt and there was not much time to find him.
Though there have been reports by Israelis in Nepal who may have seen Asraf approximately an hour after the initial quake in the Langtang region, the IDF veteran who fought in Operation Protective Edge has not been heard from since. According to Israel Radio, Asraf opted to hike ahead of the group he was with, unaccompanied, about an hour before the earthquake hit last Saturday.
Hilik Magnus, the head of Magnus International Search and Rescue, said that one of his team leaders in Nepal, Amit Rubin, is heading a rescue operation to find Asraf.
The team believes, based on Asraf’s itinerary and the time of the earthquake, that he is within a four-kilometer range of Bamboo, a village in the Langtang Valley at approximately 2,000 meters elevation
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