Israel Thanks India for Nepal Quake Rescue Help

By JTA May 1, 2015

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu thanked his Indian counterpart, Narendra Modi, for helping to rescue Israelis from Nepal.

Netanyahu spoke to Modi on Thursday and delivered his condolences for loss of life in India in the April 25 earthquake, Israel Radio reported.

More than 6,000 people died in the disaster, the vast majority in Nepal, the quake’s epicenter.

India allowed Israeli aircraft use of its airspace and facilities as they flew in to conduct search-and-rescue missions for 200 Israelis whose exact whereabouts were not know immediately after the earthquake. Nearly all of them have been airlifted back to Israel in a rescue operation mostly run from Jerusalem.

Currently, only one Israeli, Or Asraf, is missing, and Netanyahu thanked Modi for India’s assistance with search parties looking for Asraf.

Earlier this week, the Israel Defense Forces began receiving patients in the field hospital that it set up in Kathmandu, Nepal’s capital, three days after the earthquake.

Nepal’s prime minister, Sushil Koirala, visited the facility after its opening with the country’s chief-of-staff and thanked Israel’s ambassador to Nepal, Yaron Meir, for the assistance. Hundreds of people have been treated in the hospital.

Nepal says 6,204 people are known to have died in the 7.8-magnitude quake and 13,932 were injured, according to the BBC.

The fate of thousands more in many remote areas remains unknown, and the government has warned that the death toll could rise to more than 10,000.

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