The Reality of Israel’s Humanitarian Medical Aid

A group of medical students from all over the world toured several medical facilities in Israel and got to know more about the humanitarian aid provided by Israel


Ne’ama Rak
IDF Spokesperson
10 August '10

Medical students from all over the world who arrived in Israel to learn about the country’s humanitarian medicine visited with the IDF this week. When the 60 students from 25 countries visited the Bahd 10 Training Base located in Tzrifin, which houses a school for military medicine, they learned about the Medical Corps and its activities, and from there they continued to the Tel Aviv University (TAU) for a lecture by Col. Dr. Itzik Kreis, Commander of the Relief Mission to Haiti. Afterwards, they met with combat medics in reserve duty who told them about their service during the Second Lebanon War and in the territories.

The group arrived to Israel within the framework of an initiative by 20 TAU students who are members of the diplomatic “Stand With Us” program. These students created the first and only Humanitarian Medicine Conference in Israel. “This is not a political but a professional conference”, explained Capt. Itay Ashahel, one of the Israeli students behind the project who serves as an officer in the IDF Military Advocate General. “But on this opportunity we wanted the students to learn about the complexities of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict”.

The visitors only paid for their flight tickets and their entire stay in Israel was subsidized by the funds of the project. Throughout the week, they toured the Hadassah and Wolfson hospitals, learned about Israeli technological developments in the medical field, met with Israeli and Palestinian doctors, were briefed on different humanitarian projects in Israel and also visited the Old City of Jerusalem. The group is composed of students from England, the US, Canada, Nigeria, Croatia, Nepal, Singapore and many more. They are hosted by students from TAU.

The vast majority of the group is not Jewish and their knowledge about Israel at the time of their arrival was extremely limited. However, some of them already expressed their desire to stay in Israel and travel after the end of the conference.

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