On-going Israeli Government Aid
While Israeli NGO's like ZAKA, LATET, and IsraAID provide conduits
for the Israeli public to lend a helping hand to the tsunami victims,
the Government of Israel continues to receive aid requests directly
from the stricken countries.
On January 5th, the Sri Lankan ambassador to Israel made a formal request
for Israel to replenish the medicines it had initially sent two weeks
earlier, and in addition, asked that Israel send a team of psychiatrists
and psychologists to help Sri Lankans to deal with the crisis. The Ministry
of Health sent a 5-member mental health team to Sri Lanka on January
10th, headed up by Dr. Yehuda Baruch, Director-General of the Abarbanel
Psychiatric Hospital. This team will spend at least one week training
local mental health professionals in techniques learned from Israel's
experiences in dealing with the trauma of terrorism. According to the
Israeli Minister of Health, Danny Naveh, Israeli psychologists have
had to especially hone their skills during the past four years of incessant
terror attacks.