IEF UPDATES
Israel Emergency Fund Allocation Report
The Greater Miami Jewish Federation has always been a strong supporter of collective action, including the allocation of resources through our JFNA national system. The majority of our Israel and Overseas allocation supports core funding of longtime, trusted overseas partners. A smaller percentage supports our partnership with the city of Yerucham in the Negev desert, women’s issues in Israel, the Ethiopian-Israeli community, emergency medical response, religious diversity, food insecurity, special needs in Israel, as well as other work in countries outside of Israel in the FSU and Latin America.
Federation has taken the same approach for the distribution of Israel Emergency Funds. We contribute our fair share to the efforts identified by the national Federation system and also fund initiatives that are important to our community. To help guide the process of allocating IEF dollars, an Israel Emergency Allocations Subcommittee has been charged with making funding recommendations for approval by the Israel and Overseas Committee and the Federation Board of Directors.
Since October 7, Yerucham has mobilized to take in hundreds of families displaced from the Gaza Envelope. With a number of army bases in the region, they are also caring for IDF active-duty and reserve soldiers. The Greater Miami Jewish Federation is providing direct allocations through the Israel Emergency Fund to the following initiatives in Yerucham:
Click here for details on Federation elective IEF allocations.
JFNA UPDATES
The Greater Miami Jewish Federation Israel Emergency Fund supports the work of our partners in Israel through the collective efforts of the Jewish Federations of North America (JFNA). Below are the latest updates about our work.
Click here for details on JFNA's allocations thus far.
April 18, 2024
Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Activities
- Following Iran’s attack on Israel on Saturday night, Israeli officials have reassured allies across the globe that Israel intends to retaliate in only a limited manner that avoids escalation into a wider war.
- On Sunday, Iran shut down its nuclear installations and evacuated international observers from those sites; it did reopen them on Tuesday. Iran’s President Ibrahim Raisi threatened that if Israel attacks, Iran will respond “in a wide-ranging and painful manner to any small act that would harm Iran’s interests.”
- Watch this CNN interview with Senior Fellow at JPPI Yaakov Katz who describes Israel’s dilemma in either containing the Iranian threat or retaliating based on lessons it learned from Hamas on October 7.
- According to various news reports, the US has now approved a potential Israeli Rafah operation in exchange for the Jewish state not directly conducting counterstrikes on Iran at present.
- See here for additional information, background, and resources on the Iran attack.
- Yesterday, Hezbollah attacked the Bedouin village of Arab el-Aramshe in the north. Some 18 people were wounded including one who is in critical condition and one who is in serious condition. As is the case with all towns in the area, the village was largely evacuated due to its proximity to the Lebanese border.
- IDF reserve soldiers and the local emergency response squad were using a local community center as a makeshift residence, and Hezbollah launched a precise rocket attack at the building and a car parked on the street, causing a large number of casualties. When soldiers started tending to the wounded, Hezbollah launched a follow-up drone that was carrying explosives and crashed it at the site to disrupt evacuation efforts.
- Meanwhile, the IDF conducted a large-scale exercise in the northern sector, where forces trained for possible offensive operations as well as defensive measures.
- In recent evacuations of wounded soldiers from the Gaza Strip, it has taken an average of 27 minutes from the moment a soldier is wounded until they are in a helicopter on the way to the hospital “If you live in Tel Aviv, it takes longer to order a pizza than for a wounded person to get a helicopter in Gaza.”
Hostages
- Israel is still waiting for a positive Hamas response to a proposal for a hostage deal and truce put forward by the US, together with Egyptian and Qatari mediators. Israel had previously accepted the agreement. US President Joe Biden said “It’s now up to Hamas. They need to move on the proposal that has been made so we get these hostages home where they belong.”
- Meanwhile, Rachel Goldberg, mother of American-Israeli hostage 23-year-old Hersh Goldberg-Polin, was named to Time Magazine’s 2024 annual TIME100 list of the most influential people in the world. “Rachel’s inclusion on the TIME100 list is in recognition of the impact she and her husband Jon Polin, along with hundreds of other families of hostages taken by Hamas, and millions of people around the world, have had in raising global awareness of the hostage crisis and their unwavering efforts to continue to fight for the release of Hersh and every hostage,” a group representing hostages’ families said on Wednesday.
