{Cross-Posted at My Left Wing.}
According to Ha’aretz:
The death toll from Tuesday's 7.0-magnitude earthquake in Haiti could be between 45,000 and 50,000, with another three million people hurt or homeless, a senior Haitian Red Cross official said on Thursday.
We all know, of course, that those figures are tentative and that the death-toll might be much higher. As Olbermann said last night, it could be 5,000 or 50,000 or 500,000. We simply do not know, yet.
Nonetheless, I am pleased to notice that Israel is among the countries sending aid.
The Israeli Foreign Ministry has prepared a 220-member rescue team for departure to the disaster-stricken country, including elite army corps engineers and a field hospital.
Israel is thus joining the US, China, France, and Spain, among other countries, bringing relief to the devastated country.
Israeli ambassador to the Dominican Republic, Amos Radian, was scheduled to join the rescue team whose purpose is to gauge the best way Israel can assist with the crisis and decide on the most immediate needs.
IsraAID also planned to send a 12-man search-and-rescue team, which includes emergency medical staff.
One can only hope that the international effort to provide relief to Haiti is more effective than the US effort to provide relief to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. This is a time for the world community to come together and do whatever it can do to bring aid to a devastated and poverty-stricken country.
Please excuse the brevity of this diary, but there are moments in world history when the peoples of the world must come together... this is one of those moments.