Israeli Earthquake Aid to Venezuela

https://www.jpost.com/diaspora/article-901836

Israel agrees to extend earthquake aid in Venezuela after rare call between president, FM Sa'ar

Interim President Delcy Rodriguez requested an extension on Israeli aid in Venezuela ahead of the scheduled July 12 departure date as Israeli experts design a post-earthquake reconstruction plan.

Israel's Foreign Ministry and aid delegation to Venezuela meets with interim president Delcy Rodriguez in Caracas, Venezuela

The Israeli aid delegation’s earthquake relief work in Venezuela will continue for an additional two weeks after interim president Delcy Rodriguez met with Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar to request the extension, the Foreign Ministry and the IDF announced on Wednesday. 

The decision was approved by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

With a small delegation of only 30 people, Israeli presence in Venezuela has been focused on designing a national reconstruction plan, which Rodriguez hopes to begin implementing.

As part of the plan, the IDF began mapping and categorizing approximately 1,300 buildings on Monday, classifying them as either to be demolished or potentially salvageable despite damage.

Additionally, IDF Brig.-Gen. Elad Edri said that the IDF engineers have provided guidance to Venezuela on handling debris from damaged buildings.

'Out of the box thinking' as earthquake death toll rises

The multi-year plan is a major accomplishment of the Israeli delegation, and Venezuela approved it within days, rather than the weeks or months it would normally take to develop.

Edri said the severity of the disaster warranted rapid, out-of-the-box thinking.

Following the June 24 earthquake, the IDF delegation flew out of Israel on June 30 and landed in Venezuela on July 1 after multiple complex stopovers, Edri said.

He explained that, given the current chaos, other delegations who wanted to assist with the disaster have needed four to five days of travel and waiting to reach disaster-stricken sites.

Even the IDF could not fly directly into Caracas; they flew into Valencia instead and then traveled domestically to Caracas.

On Sunday, the Venezuelan Information Ministry announced that the death toll had risen to 3,342.

The new tally also puts the number of injured at 16,470, while the number of homeless has risen to 17,345. Nearly 200 buildings are confirmed to have collapsed, according to state officials.

Some of the homeless are living in official shelters and others in tent encampments. An unofficial but widely used tally of the missing stands at around 41,000.

https://www.jpost.com/diaspora/article-901836

https://www.timesofisrael.com/pm-hails-israeli-aid-team-for-rebuilding-relations-with-venezuela-after-17-years-of-severed-ties/

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday hailed the Israeli delegation providing aid following the major earthquake in Venezuela, saying it was not only helping the country recover from last month’s devastating earthquakes, but also “rebuilding relations” with Caracas nearly two decades after it severed ties with Israel.

“You are rebuilding ruins, and you are also rebuilding relations. You are showing the people of Venezuela, as well as the Venezuelan government, the true face of the State of Israel,” Netanyahu said in a video message to the delegation’s head and chief of staff of the Home Front Command, Elad Edri, and Israel’s ambassador-designate to Mexico, Yoed Magen, who is leading the civilian component of the delegation.

The delegation has been operating in several earthquake-hit areas for the past 10 days at the request of the Venezuelan government, assessing and classifying damaged buildings and assisting with reconstruction efforts following the earthquakes that according to the latest tally killed at least 3,889.

Nearly 17,000 people were also injured in the 7.2 and 7.5 magnitude earthquakes on June 24, while almost 18,000 more lost their homes.

Following talks with Venezuela’s infrastructure minister, the Israeli team prepared a national reconstruction plan that was approved by Venezuela’s acting president, Delcy Rodriguez, according to Israel.

“What you are doing now is coming to a country that severed relations nearly 20 years ago, and you are proving how beneficial it is to have ties with Israel,” Netanyahu said.

IDF Home Front Command engineering experts are seen in Venezuela

Venezuela broke off diplomatic ties with Israel over the 2008-2009 war in Gaza, and under then-leader Hugo Chavez, it was one of the world’s most vocal critics of Israel during the war in Gaza that was sparked by Hamas’s October 7, 2023, terror invasion.

However, Israel has expressed hope for better ties with Caracas since the US captured Venezuela’s then-president Nicolas Maduro in January and supported Rodriguez taking power.

“We are very proud to represent the country here… We are operating here day and night together with the local government and the Venezuelan government’s Infrastructure Ministry. We have also connected here with the Jewish community,” Edri said in the video, adding that “both official representatives and the Venezuelan people have been very warm toward the delegation.”

https://www.timesofisrael.com/pm-hails-israeli-aid-team-for-rebuilding-relations-with-venezuela-after-17-years-of-severed-ties/

The 'angel' in uniform: the Israeli officer giving Venezuelan earthquake survivors hope

Home Front Command officer Avi Cohen is helping earthquake-hit Venezuelans determine whether they can return home, reassuring residents that damaged buildings are safe while warning that similar destruction could occur in Israel

In the Home Front Command aid delegation operating in the earthquake-hit area of Venezuela, one reserve officer has stood out as an angel of hope for many residents. He is Avi Cohen (39), a structural engineer from Giv'at Shmuel who has served for years in the search and rescue unit as a senior academic professional officer, the rank equivalent to a lieutenant.

These days, Cohen is the person telling families whose homes were damaged by the quake whether their buildings are safe to live in or whether, unfortunately, the structures are dangerous and must be demolished.

“People say, ‘Thank God,’ ‘Thank you for coming.’ Some of them have been sleeping in tents until now because they were afraid to return home,” he said.

Cohen, who was born in Mexico and immigrated to Israel 15 years ago, speaks Spanish as his mother tongue, which has proved to be a significant advantage during the mission. In civilian life, he is a construction engineer specializing in the design of earthquake-resistant buildings, including schools and hospitals. During his mandatory military service, he served as a protection engineer in the Home Front Command’s research and development unit.

“I’m a reservist,” he told ynet. “When I received the call-up, I immediately said ‘yes,’ and only afterward went to ask my wife. This is a great opportunity both to help and to learn how an event like this is managed in reality.”

According to Cohen, the scale of the destruction is difficult to comprehend.

“Every morning we drive from Caracas to the affected areas, and along the way we see destroyed homes on both sides of the road or buildings that are about to collapse. We are only in one city and the destruction is enormous. We also talk among ourselves and understand that if a powerful earthquake hits Israel, we could see scenes like this there too. We are here also to learn and prepare.”

The Israeli delegation is not treating buildings that have already collapsed, but rather those that were damaged and whose safety remains unclear.

“We are called to buildings with damage. The teams enter, assess the condition of the structure, look for signs of potential future collapse and work according to the Home Front Command’s methodology. At the end, we determine whether the building is safe or whether it must be evacuated.”

Cohen said the most moving moments are when they can reassure residents.

“People are afraid to return home. We explain to them that there are cracks, but the structure is intact and there is no danger. It is a great feeling of satisfaction.”

On the other hand, there are also difficult moments.

“Sometimes we have to stand in front of a family and tell them: ‘You cannot continue living here.’ It is news that breaks their hearts.”

Cohen said he was pleasantly surprised by the quality of local construction.

“There is a different construction method here than in Israel. There are many concrete block walls, but in many cases the structure itself remains intact. We were impressed that there are more safe buildings than we expected.”

In recent days, the delegation inspected eight massive residential buildings, each about 15 stories high, housing between 600 and 1,200 families.

“We found that all eight buildings were sound. That same day, we were able to tell thousands of people that they could return home. These are moments you do not forget.”

He said the delegation members have received an especially warm welcome.

“From the moment we landed, we were welcomed with open arms. Everywhere people tell us: ‘You’re from Israel? Thank you for coming.’ They greatly appreciate the fact that people traveled from far away to help them. We hear only positive things. We have good security, but the feeling is that people here are simply happy that we are with them.”

https://www.ynetnews.com/article/ry0ap0pqzx

Special Procedure Rescues Soldier With Shrapnel Near Aorta

https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/429847

Special procedure rescues soldier from shrapnel near aorta

An IDF reserve officer who was critically wounded in combat in southern Lebanon underwent a rare life-saving operation after doctors discovered a piece of shrapnel lodged just millimeters from his aorta.

An IDF reserve officer who was critically wounded in combat in southern Lebanon underwent a rare life-saving operation after doctors discovered a piece of shrapnel lodged just millimeters from his aorta.

Maj. Malachi Moundani, 26, a reserve unit commander from the community of Neve in the Eshkol region, was seriously injured during an encounter with terrorists last Thursday. He was evacuated to Rambam Medical Center with multiple penetrating wounds in life-threatening condition.

After stabilizing him, doctors found that a fragment had come to rest dangerously close to the aorta, the body's main artery. Medical teams faced a difficult choice: operating carried significant risks due to his extensive injuries, but leaving the fragment in place could have proven fatal if it shifted and tore the artery.

Following consultations between trauma, vascular, and cardiac surgery specialists, doctors decided to proceed with surgery. Dr. Tzvi Adler and Dr. Kamel Morshad successfully removed the fragment without complications.

"The fragment was sitting right next to the aorta, in contact with it," said Prof. Gil Bolotin, head of Rambam's cardiac surgery department. "Any movement could have punctured the aorta and led to a catastrophic outcome."

Bolotin noted that the case was exceptionally rare and scarcely documented in medical literature, prompting extensive deliberations over whether surgery was the safest option. "We chose to operate," he said. "The procedure went smoothly, and fortunately the patient stabilized afterward and was transferred for continued treatment at the medical center."

https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/429847

Hannibal's Route Across the Alps

https://www.dailymail.com/sciencetech/article-15955711/Hannibal-Alps-elephant-march-route.html

Mystery of Hannibal's Alpine march solved? Scientists calculate how 46,000 men and 37 elephants could have made military history's greatest journey

Scientists may have finally solved the 2,200-year-old mystery of Hannibal's legendary Alpine crossing.

In 218 BC, the young Carthaginian general marched 40,000 men, 7,000 horses, and 37 war elephants across the Alps into Italy to wage war against Rome.

For hundreds of years, historians have struggled to pin down the exact route of military history's greatest journey.

But now scientists have used the science of elephant athletics to trace Hannibal's steps through the mountains.

With historical evidence so sparse, researchers used modelling based on modern African elephants to estimate how much energy each possible route would require.

This revealed that the most popular theory, the Col du Clapier route, would have been one of the most arduous options available.

Instead, the researchers found that the most efficient route would have been to take the Col de la Traversette, a mountain pass connecting France and Italy at 9,669 feet (2,947 m).

This would have used between 11 and 19 per cent less energy than the alternative options - making it the most likely path for a pack of exhausted soldiers.

Scientists have revealed the route that Hannibal might have used to cross the Alps in 218 BC, showing that the Col de la Traversette would have been the most efficient route

Hannibal’s likely route through the Alps

Hannibal's crossing of the Alps is often seen as the climactic moment of the Second Punic War between Carthage and Rome in the third century BC.

Having conquered much of what is now modern-day Spain, the 28-year-old general Hannibal led his army northwards to march on Rome.

Rather than battle through Roman-allied garrisons or risk crossing the Mediterranean Sea where Roman naval forces dominated, Hannibal decided to take his army over the Alps and enter Italy through the Po Valley in the north.

Not prepared for the Carthaginians' boldness, Rome's northern forces were defeated by December that year and Hannibal spent the next 15 years rampaging through Italy.

But even the closest contemporary report of this achievement wasn't written until decades later, and archaeological evidence has remained elusive.

'The question of Hannibal's exact route has been debated for generations,' says co-author Dr Emilio Berti, of the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research.

To try and solve this puzzle, Dr Berti and his co-author Professor Fritz Vollrath, of the University of Oxford, used a model that combines body mass and terrain slope to work out how much energy a route would consume.

They used these calculations to work out how efficient each of the four most likely routes through the Alps would be for men, horses, and elephants.

In 218 BC, the young Carthaginian general marched 40,000 men, 7,000 horses, and 37 war elephants across the Alps into Italy to wage war against Rome 

Scientists found that the Col de la Traversette would have used between 11 and 19 per cent less energy for the men, horses and elephants than other possible paths 

These revealed that the route via the Col de la Traversette is the most efficient path, consuming 5.42 terajoules of energy for the whole army.

That is 11 per cent less than the second best option, going via the Col de Montgenèvre and reaching the Po Valley from Susa, which used 6.02 terajoules.

The route via the Col du Clapier, which had been seen as the most likely choice, was even less efficient - costing 6.28 terajoules.

A proposed route along the Col du Mont Cenis was the least efficient option, at 6.45 terajoules for Hannibal's entire army.

Dr Berti says: 'The new analysis does not eliminate all ambiguity, but it does strengthen the case for the Traversette route by demonstrating that it would better accommodate the demands of moving a large army that included elephants through extremely difficult alpine terrain.'

However, even though this route is more efficient than the alternatives, the researchers also showed just how gruelling the march would really be.

Following this route, the men in Hannibal's army would lose 19 per cent of their body fat reserves.

This, combined with the cold weather and hazardous terrain, could explain the high mortality rate for the human part of the army.

Hannibal's surprise attack in North Italy allowed him to gain the upper hand over Rome. However, scientists say the crossing consumed 19 per cent of his men's body fat reserves, leading to high fatalities  

The elephants would have handled the crossing better than men due to their large fat reserves and surprisingly good climbing skills, losing just four per cent of their body fat. Pictured: An African elephant demonstrates its climbing ability 

The elephants, meanwhile, would have fared much better than you might expect.

According to the researchers' calculations, the elephants would have lost just four per cent of their fat reserves by the time they reached Northern Italy.

This is partially because elephants naturally have large fat reserves, but also because elephants are far more capable mountaineers than they often get credit for.

In their paper, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the researchers write: 'Indeed, in addition to having large fat energy reserves, we now know that elephants move akin to a four-wheel-drive vehicle.

'This would make them particularly suitable for mountaineering.'

The fact that none of the elephants died during the crossing is a testament to just how tough these animals really are.

However, the fact that all had been left to die by the following winter suggests that Hannibal might have come to regret bringing such enormously expensive war animals with him after all.

THE CARTHAGINANS 

Pictured: the location of Carthage, with the extent of the Carthaginian Empire in blue

Ancient Carthage was a Phoenician civilisation centred around Carthage, on the Gulf of Tunis, which was founded by colonists from Tyre in 814 BC.

At its height during the fourth century BC, the city–state became the largest metropolis in the world, with an empire that dominated the western Mediterranean. 

It had a mercantile network that extended from northern Europe down to West Africa and across to West Asia.

Far less is known about Carthage's peoples than those of ancient Rome or Greece, as most indigenous records were destroyed — along with the city — following the Third Punic War in 146 BC.

Their victory in this conflict paved the way for the Roman civilisation to become the dominant power in the Mediterranean. 

https://www.dailymail.com/sciencetech/article-15955711/Hannibal-Alps-elephant-march-route.html

Stalin's Apostles: The Cambridge Five

https://www.jpost.com/history/article-901146

New Book: 'Stalin’s Apostles': The Cambridge Five

From elite universities to Soviet handlers, the Cambridge Five helped Stalin penetrate Britain’s security and decision-making core.

From the 1930s up until Stalin’s death in 1953, six million people were sent to the Soviet Gulag. A quarter did not survive. Another 16-17 million were transported to strict regime labor camps, where the death rate was around 10%.

Within these numbers are the names of tens of thousands of Jews of every kind, from the devout hassid to the assimilated Communist.

Stalin’s rule was fortified by spies who believed that they were repairing the world and saving it from the ravages of fascism. The most effective of these were five young idealists who were at Cambridge University in the 1930s and who bore witness to the rise of Hitler and the march of Nazism across Europe. 

The Cambridge Five: Guy Burgess, Donald McLean, Kim Philby, Anthony Blunt, and John Cairncross sold their collective soul to Stalin. While their story has been retold countless times in many books, the remarkable Stalin’s Apostles: The Cambridge Five and the Making of the Soviet Empire by Antonia Senior sheds new light on their treachery, even though it is 75 years since Burgess and McLean defected to Moscow. 

With McLean and Cairncross embedded in the British Foreign Office, Stalin was able to read the personal correspondence exchanged between Churchill and Roosevelt and to understand British thinking at the most crucial junctures of decision-making.

Gut Burgess, 1935. (credit: Wikimedia Commons)

The Foreign Office in the 1930s had no security precautions.

Officials could take home important documents, and spies could indulge themselves by photographing files and delivering the copies to a handler by the shovel load. These were taken to a safe house in Copenhagen and then passed on to Moscow, where their Russian translations were typed onto pale green paper and bound in only five copies. One was delivered to Stalin.

This laxity was embellished by visits by some of the spies to gay brothels at a time when homosexuality was illegal in the UK. Some also regarded perpetual bed-hopping as their right as members of the British upper class. This was further fuelled by a liking for pink gin, followed by drunkenness on a dissolute scale. This loosened the tongues of Burgess and McLean as to their true views on many occasions.

McLean sent the minutes of the Imperial Defense Committee and revealed that there was an ongoing fuel shortage for the Royal Navy. He also sent the command structure and revealed the names of the senior personnel at MI5. 

Together with Cairncross, he passed on information about British thinking during the Spanish Civil War.

Philby had posed as an ardent pro-Franco enthusiast in order to enter sympathetic circles in London and was actually awarded a medal by the Spanish dictator.

Unlike George Orwell, Philby had no qualms about the Soviet persecution and killing of Trotskyists and anarchists in Spain who were similarly opposed to Franco’s fascism.

One particular strength of Senior’s excellent book is that it highlights the terrible cost in lives lost during Stalin’s purges and mass killings. She quotes Osip Mandelstam’s famous poem about Stalin: “He rolls the executions on his tongue like berries.”

The Cambridge Five are usually characterized as being upper-class, gay, and intellectually brilliant. This book rightly veers away from portraying them in a pseudo-romantic light in the understandable service of a mistaken cause.

The first inkling that Britain harbored a nest of spies came in January 1940, when a defector told British intelligence that a “young aristocratic man” who had attended public school at Eton and gone to Cambridge University was a Soviet mole in the Foreign Office.

Senior notes that by the end of the Great Terror in the USSR in the 1930s, 275 out of the 450 foreign operatives who had been run by the NKVD, the forerunner of the KGB, had been shot or sent to the Gulag. Many of these defectors, believing they had escaped, met unexpected and suspicious deaths.

Lost world of Jewish Communism

The Cambridge Five dwelled within the lost world of Jewish Communism. The Balfour Declaration and the Russian Revolution occurred within days of each other in 1917. It set parallel paths to the future before 20th-century Jews.

Blunt’s handler in London was Arnold Deutsch, who posed as an observant Jew. Deutsch had been in Mandatory Palestine and operated in several European capitals. He moved to London, and his cover was to carry out research in psychology at University College London. His task was to seek out the brightest and the best at British universities, spark their idealism, and recruit them for the cause.

Deutsch lived in Hampstead, where he held soirèes for an interested intelligentsia. Many of these Anglo-Jewish

Communist émigrés came from central Europe. Philby himself lived in nearby Belsize Park.

Philby’s first wife was Litzi Friedmann. Teddy Kollek, the future mayor of Jerusalem, was at their wedding in Vienna. Senior notes that in September 1950, Kollek bumped into Philby at CIA headquarters and was speechless. He rushed to tell the legendary James Jesus Angleton of the Office of Special Operations that “a known Communist sympathiser” was walking the corridors of the CIA. Angleton waved the complaint aside, saying that he was “a good friend of the Agency.”

Harry Smollett, aka Hans Peter Smolka, was another Viennese Jew who was a friend of Litzi, as was Edith Tudor-Hart (née Suschitzky).

Gossip and information from a network of friends reached Philby, and the others who passed such tidbits on to their Soviet handlers.

Flora Solomon was a long-time friend of Philby, who had tried to recruit her in the 1930s. Like many other associates, she said nothing. But her suspicions deepened when Philby was publicly accused of being “the Third Man,” even when he had been exonerated by Foreign Secretary Harold Macmillan in the House of Commons.

Solomon made certain to block Philby’s employment by the Anglo-Jewish firm of Marks and Spencer. In virtual exile in Beirut, Philby acted as a stringer for The Observer but annoyed Solomon, an ardent Zionist, because he praised Egyptian Gamal Abdel Nasser, president of the United Arab Republic, then Israel’s greatest foe.

She told British intelligence about her suspicions shortly before Philby defected.

In 2022 and in January 2025, the National Archives in the UK released a tranche of MI5’s files on the investigations of Philby, Blunt, and Cairncross. Some have been held back, and Antonia Senior raises pertinent questions about this.

All five died free, in their own beds, albeit unhappily.

In Moscow, Burgess, McLean, and Philby read the British press daily and followed the cricket scores religiously. Burgess commented, “I hate Russia – I am a British Communist,” while Philby’s suave, convincing charm earned him the sobriquet of “the most English of traitors.” He viewed defection as salvation and not betrayal.

Philby died in 1988 and has been forgotten by today’s generation, but not by Vladimir Putin, a KGB man in Dresden at the time of Philby’s passing. A stamp bearing Philby’s image was issued in 1990, and a Moscow square was named after him in 2018. 

In July 2023, Putin erected a statue of Philby near the battleground of Kursk, where the Red Army defeated the Nazis in 1943.

Senior’s brilliant and absorbing book is meticulously researched and adds much to all previous accounts of the Cambridge Five. It deserves a merited place on the bookshelf of anyone who is dismayed by the rise of authoritarian figures today. ■

STALIN’S APOSTLES: THE CAMBRIDGE FIVE AND THE MAKING OF THE SOVIET EMPIRE
By Antonia Senior
PublicAffairs
480 pages; $29

https://www.jpost.com/history/article-901146