Wounded Reporter Returns from Georgia on Third Rescue Flight

A third rescue flight for Israelis and Jews in the combat zones of Georgia landed in Ben Gurion International Airport early Wednesday morning as a fragile ceasefire began to take hold in the volatile region. More than 500 people have stepped on to the tarmac in Israel since the first El Al plane arrived from Tbilisi Tuesday evening, bearing 210 returning Israelis and 30 new Georgian immigrants making a hasty move.

Final treatment aboard the aircraft prior to transferring the patient to an ambulance for evacuation to hospital at home in Israel at last

(courtesy of ZAKA)

Among the returning Israelis was wounded journalist Tzadok Yehezkeli, who remains in serious but stable condition after suffering shrapnel wounds in a Russian attack that killed a Dutch journalist.

Doctor prepares to disembark from aircraft

(courtesy of ZAKA)

Yehezkeli, who was covering the war between Russia and Georgia over Georgia’s breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, was hit by flying shrapnel when an artillery shell hit a convoy of reporters’ cars in the center of the city of Gori.  Several other reporters were wounded in the attack.

Two Israeli doctors, Avi Rivkind and Micha Shamir, flew to Georgia to treat and bring Yehezkeli home. He was whisked away by ambulance to Hadassah Hospital Ein Kerem in Jerusalem as soon as the plane landed.

Preparing to transfer the patient from aircraft to ambulance

(courtesy of ZAKA)

Yehezkeli, 52, was covering the war for the Hebrew-language daily newspaper Yedioth Achronot. He is known as a top journalist in Israel and was a winner of the Israeli Press Committee’s Sokolov Prize for investigative journalism in 2002.

<?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />Israel to Send Aid to Georgia

Israel is sending humanitarian aid to Georgia as the first part of a broader aid effort to be implemented soon. The shipment, which will be flown by the Georgian national airline, consists of two respirators and seven EKG monitors.

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Government officials said in a statement the aid comes as a result of cooperation between the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Archimedes Global- Madanes Group.

Ceasefire Agreement, Take Two

Russia announced Wednesday morning it had agreed to a ceasefire, the second to be announced in two days.  The new agreement came following meetings with French President Nicolas Sarkozy of the European Union.

Sarkozy brought the new plan to Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili in Tbilisi after talks in Moscow and said he would present the agreement to European Union  ministers after it is signed by both leaders.

The ceasefire proposal by Russian President Dimitry Medvedev "is a political document. It is an agreement of principles... and I think we have full coincidence of principles," said Saakashvili at a joint news conference with Sarkozy.

One reference to future talks on the status of the breakaway region of South Ossetia, where the conflict started, was removed from the document prior to its approval.

Although the politicians in Moscow and Tbilisi told reporters that a ceasefire had been agreed upon, however, it was not clear whether the agreement had translated into peace at the front.