As attention continues to focus on Israel’s northern border, the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews (IFCJ) facilitated the distribution of 1,500 flak jackets and 150 first aid response kits to 105 local emergency response units ("kitot konenut") in communities in the Golan and Galilee regions.
The distribution comes as a further step in the Fellowship’s ongoing efforts to ensure optimal equipping and response capabilities of local communities to the ongoing threats on multiple fronts.
Since the onset of the war, IFCJ has distributed over 4,100 flak jackets, 500 first responder kits and positioned 30 new mobile shelters in the north. In partnership with The Association for Israel’s Soldiers, the Fellowship has allocated two million shekel in emergency funding to 400 military families with loved ones injured in battle.
Safwan Marich, Director of the Safety and Emergency Response Division of IFCJ said, “Since the outbreak of the war, we’ve been in constant contact with all our partners in the Homefront Command and rescue services, with the goal of giving an immediate response to the many needs that are changing constantly.”
“When we were informed of the challenges facing the local emergency response units in the local communities, we responded by ensuring that they would receive critical protection and first aid equipment. We see supporting the community-based defense infrastructure as one of our key objectives and we will continue to make ourselves available to respond to the many new demands arising all over the country.”
In total IFCJ has allocated and distributed over 50 million shekel in emergency aid to communities and residents in the most heavily affected regions. The allocations are coordinated with all the relevant agencies and organizations in the field including local and national authorities, first responders, hospitals, food distribution agencies and others in order to best gauge immediate need and ensure the funds are being properly distributed. Each day, thousands of prepared meals funded through IFCJ support are being distributed to elderly in the south who didn’t evacuate, as well as to the families of those who have left their homes. For the first time since its dedication earlier this year, the IFCJ Mobile Emergency Response Center has been mobilized to provide a place for families and volunteers stationed at the Casualty Identification Center to rest and refresh in a shaded space and receive food drinks, snacks, access to electricity to charge phones and other devices.
"As the war is affecting people all throughout Israel in so many different ways, our goal is to make sure our communities are being physically defended and equipped in ways that can prevent any more lives being senselessly lost to brutal attacks,” said Yael Eckstein, President of the IFCJ. “This is a crisis and challenge the likes of which Israel has never faced before. But together with our friends in Israel and around the world, we say that those in need will never be alone and that through our national and global unity, good will triumph over the evil that intended to destroy us.”