• As the death toll in Turkey and Syria from a pair of devastating earthquakes crosses 12,000 on Wednesday, Israel is stepping up rescue efforts alongside dozens of other countries in a race against time and freezing temperatures to find additional survivors.
• “Already on [Monday] evening, the first advance team arrived to the site,” Israeli Ambassador Irit Lillian told The Algemeiner in an interview Wednesday. “Unlike in previous natural disasters that have occurred in Turkey, this time the [Turkish] Minister of Interior moved immediately after the announcement of the earthquake and said ‘we will need international assistance.’”
• Once that request was made, Israel moved to send a team that they had already begun assembling “within minutes” of hearing of the scale of the disaster.

Tagged: Weather