Four Israeli volunteers, sent by the Israeli aid charity IsraAID, arrived in Britain on Monday to help repair homes and distribute food and blankets in the north of England.
On arrival in Leeds, they were welcomed by locals and later met with councillors to discuss the best way they could help.
Shachar Zahavi, founding director of IsraAID, said that his team had met with other groups who are delivering food and helping residents to rebuild their homes.
Having responded to ten floods and tornado disasters in the United States, Zahavi said it was not unusual for the team of volunteers to help in Britain, which seemed “worse than ever before”.
He said: “We wanted to show the community we would be there for them… the first team were greeted by locals with open hands and are now mapping the workloads which would include distribution of goods and gutting houses helping people repair their homes”.
They will be joined by a team of five more volunteers when it has been determined where their assistance will be most effective.
Founded in 2001, IsraAid is an umbrella organization for Israeli and Jewish groups offering humanitarian aid in disaster-struck areas. It has sent teams to locations around the world, including Sri Lanka, Peru, Nepal, South Sudan, the Phillipines and Haiti.
Aid workers from the Israeli NGO have most recently travelled to Greece and the Serbian border with Hungary in order to distribute supplies and provide assistance to Syrian and Afghan refugees fleeing war-torn countries.
The efforts of the team have been covered in multiple papers and in a video report by BBC Radio Leeds.
