Welcome to our breaking news page. We will update this regularly with news about the work of the ZAKA volunteers in Northern Israel during the fires.

We turn to you, friends of ZAKA, and ask for your generous support to allow these dedicated volunteers to continue their life-saving and sacred humanitarian work.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Thanks ZAKA For Its "Exemplary Conduct"

5-Dec-10 16:08

At the start of the special Cabinet meeting held today (Sunday), 5.12.10, in Tirat Hacarmel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's included ZAKA among the emergency personnel singled out for praise for their “exemplary conduct”.

“I would like to take this opportunity to again thank the firefighters, police, soldiers, MDA and ZAKA personnel, the municipality employees, the voluntary organizations and Israelis who have shown exemplary conduct. There has been a general mobilization of the entire nation in a display of mutual responsibility at this crucial time.”

Interior Minister Eli Yishai Praises ZAKA's Sacred Work At Site Of Forest Fire

5-Dec-10 14:47

Eli Yishai praises ZAKA Northern Operations Commander Hezki Farkash on the sacred work of his volunteers at the forest fire

YISHAI: “THE PEOPLE OF ISRAEL OWE YOU MUCH GRATITUDE FOR THE HOLY WORK THAT YOU HAVE BEEN DOING IN THE PAST FEW DAYS SINCE THE OUTBREAK OF THE FIRE.”

In the early hours of Sunday morning, shortly after midnight, (5.12.10), Deputy Prime Minister and Interior Minister Eli Shai paid a surprise visit to the ZAKA volunteers in the Carmel forest to praise their dedication and offer encouragement as they continued their sacred work.

The volunteers, with the participation and assistance of the Galil-Carmel Rescue Unit, the Fire Service, Israel Police, Israel Electricity Company and the ZAKA Jeep Search and Rescue Unit, were working relentlessly at the site of the bus inferno on the Carmel hillside in a final push to collect all the last human remains before the funerals today, Sunday (5.12.10).

In order to reach the site at which ZAKA volunteers uncovered the chilling sight Friday afternoon of the 15 bodies, fixed in a collective embrace after a futile attempt to escape the raging inferno, the ZAKA volunteers were forced to rappel down the hillside, attached on ropes to the roadside. At the site, they slowly and painstakingly sifted through the charred earth and soot to uncover the last of the human remains, in order to ensure a full Jewish burial for the victims. The recovery work had been halted on Friday afternoon with the onset of the Sabbath and resumed, under the glare of spotlights, on Saturday evening.

Deputy Prime Minister and Interior Minister Eli Shai: “The people of Israel owe you much gratitude for the holy work that you have been doing in the past few days since the outbreak of the fire. On a personal note, I would like to offer you my encouragement. It is particularly heart-warming to see, up close, the holy work that you are doing.”

Hezki Farkash, ZAKA Operations Commander, Northern Command, a veteran with the ZAKA Rescue and Recovery organization since 2002, briefed the Minister on the activities of the ZAKA volunteers that lasted from Thursday evening through the early hours of Sunday morning. “This was the most difficult and complex incident that we have ever had to deal with in the northern region. Our volunteers displayed immense personal courage as they worked to recover the bodies from the bus and the surrounding hillside, even as the fire continued to rage. Another team of ZAKA volunteers assisted in the identification of the charred bodies and volunteers from other regions remain on standby, should the situation change.”

DEATH ROW

5-Dec-10 08:36

ZAKA: THIS IS THE MOST SHOCKING INCIDENT WE HAVE EVER WITNESSED. THE ZAKA VOLUNTEERS CAME ACROSS A CHILLING SIGHT ON THE SIDE OF THE HILL: 15 BODIES IN A TIGHT EMBRACE.

More than 100 ZAKA volunteers under the direction of ZAKA Northern Commander Anshel Friedman scanned the Carmel forest area throughout the day and night on Thursday (2.12.10 in a frantic effort to locate the missing and the victims on the Prison Service bus that was incinerated in the raging forest fire.

After hours of searching the area – at great personal risk to their lives due to the unpredictable nature of the fast-moving flames – a group of ZAKA volunteers came across a chilling sight on the side of the mountain, close to the area where the bus was engulfed in flames.

Hezki Farkash, ZAKA Operations Commander, Northern Command explains. “While we were working on identification of the bodies recovered from the bus, we received a call on the ZAKA beeper from our team in the field, who thought they had found another body near the bus. A ZAKA volunteer, accompanied by a member of the fire service, went down the side of the mountain with the help of ropes, and it was there that they saw such a horrific and heart-rending sight. It was only then that the full horror of the scene became evident. This was not just one body, but 15 former Prison Service people who had tried to escape from the inferno, to no avail, embraced and perished.”

ZAKA volunteer, Dudi Rosenberg: “This is the most difficult and complex incident that we have ever had to deal with in the northern region. The volunteers recovered the bodies even as the fire continued to rage. I cannot find the words to describe the terrible sight of people who were burned alive as they were trying to escape.”

FOUR TEAMS

The ZAKA volunteers were divided into four teams at the site, working with special masks that enabled them to breathe despite the thick smoke. One team of ZAKA volunteers searched the mountain to collect the remains of the charred bodies of the people who tried to escape and were burned alive. Another team worked on the bus itself, ensuring that all human remains were removed. A third team was stationed at the temporary morgue that was set up to receive the victims and a fourth ZAKA team assisted in the complex operation of identifying the bodies. ZAKA team leader, Abraham Danziger: “The terrible smell of the charred bodies which is hanging in the air will remain with me for a long time. Some of the bodies are in a very bad condition and we are working hard to identify them.”

The scene on the road to Beit Oren was chilling indeed, as one body after another was recovered from the bus by the ZAKA team and laid in a row – death row – along the side of the road. Even the most veteran ZAKA volunteers, with more than a decade of experience of bus bombings and natural disasters, broke down at the scale of the tragedy that was unfolding before their eyes.

ZAKA team leader, Raphael Mant: “The awful scenes of tens of bodies lined up one next to the other, completely burnt, recalls images from the Holocaust. It was extremely chilling.”

MORE BODY BAGS NEEDED

When a call was made to the central command post for another roll of ZAKA body bags, the volunteer in charge of logistics cried out; “No, it can’t be…” ZAKA volunteers from other parts of the country were also called up to assist their colleagues in the Northern Command, and all the necessary equipment was sent up to the North, including emergency lighting.

On Friday morning, ZAKA volunteers returned to the hillside near the bus in order to carry out a painstaking search for the missing Haifa Police Chief-Superintendent Yitzhak Melina who drove behind the ill-fated bus. After many hours of inch-by-inch searching, the victim’s body was found, recovered and identified.

RAPPELLING TO FIND THE LAST REMAINS

On Saturday, immediately after the conclusion of Shabbat, the ZAKA volunteers began another complex mission of locating and collecting any remains that had been left behind on the hillside. In order to carry out this painstaking search to ensure a full Jewish burial for the victims, the ZAKA volunteers were lowered down the hillside on ropes. Here, under the glare of the emergency lighting, they sifted through the charred soil – holy work that honors the victims who died under such terrible conditions.

When the fire is finally brought under control, all the ZAKA volunteers will receive psychological counseling and special workshops to give them the spiritual and emotional strength they need to continue their sacred work, as they return to their daily work with traffic accidents and other incidents.