Update From Haiti

January 25: Israeli Aid Continues to Save Lives in Haiti

The IDF search and rescue teams sent to Haiti have done an incredible job. They have rescued a number of people, including pulling a student from a collapsed school after six days. Even more amazingly, on Tuesday, a full week after the earthquake, they were able to find another survivor.

Because of the number of terrorist attacks Israel has suffered, their search and rescue teams are well trained and very experienced—regarded by many as the best in the world. Though the rescue part of the operation has now ended, the Israeli doctors and support staff continue treating hundreds of survivors in need of medical care.

The state-of-the-art field hospital has been set up in Port-au-Prince next to the soccer stadium. Doctors have cared for many infants believed to be orphaned by the earthquake. Israel's foreign ministry is working to establish an orphanage in Haiti for the little victims, and to facilitate adoptions within Israel. Though much has been done, the work of recovery has barely even started…and we need to help.

The main road that connects Santo Domingo (the capital of the Dominican Republic) with Port-au-Prince is open. But traffic is so heavy, with aid coming in and thousands fleeing from the destruction going out, that the 150 mile trip can take up to 18 hours. Fuel is in critically short supply for cars as well as diesel fuel for generators since electrical service has still not been restored. Like most Caribbean countries, Haiti has to import all of its fuel.

The airport is very small, with only one runway. This has greatly hampered relief efforts because so few planes can come in each day. There is also very little room for planes to park so they can be offloaded. Compounding the problem, the dock structures and unloading cranes at the main port were so badly damaged that bringing in aid by ship requires a long and tedious process of transferring goods to smaller ships to bring ashore.

As a result, the more than one and a half million people left homeless by the earthquake are critically short of food, water and medicine. Most of them are sleeping in parks, schoolyards or soccer fields in "tents" that are really just sheets thrown over whatever they can find to provide a little shelter. It is very hot here—temperatures are in the upper 80s, though thankfully there has been very little rain. The lack of sanitation and water makes these crowded living conditions especially dangerous because of the spread of infectious diseases.

Doctors are treating people whose injuries, especially broken bones, have gone untreated, making the situation much worse. Many have had to have arms or legs amputated to save their lives from gangrene.