The Muqata Blog posted and translated (from Hebrew) this letter from an Israeli soldier serving in Haiti to his parents:
The Delegation to Haiti
In the lifesaving IDF Medical Corps Delegation to Haiti which is housed in tents, doctors prevent disabilities. They administer aid to the sick, provide warmth, love, and a human touch. They love the wounded.
In the IDF Medical Corps Delegation to Haiti which is housed in tents located in the middle of a hell, every complex medical case has an ethics review board.
In the IDF Medical Corps Delegation to Haiti which is housed in tents, the chances of success are debated whether to amputate the entire leg of a child: the chances of a premature infant to survive while on a ventilator in a preemie unit in the tent.
In the IDF Medical Corps Delegation which came from Israel in the Middle East to Haiti, there are American volunteer doctors. They have no other useful installation in which to work in. A doctor and nurse from Germany came. They heard this is best hospital in Haiti. An emergency room team from Colombia arrived with all their equipment and asked if they could set up next to us to be part of our hospital. England is the enlightened country in Europe, the one which has an academic boycott of Israel; twenty British doctors and nurses asked to work with us.
All these people, without exception, stand together at the morning formation at 7 AM in the flag square. The flag of Israel. The flag of a country which was established after the USA was already superpower. After the British left a land under their control. After Colombia was already an established country. After the Holocaust against the Jewish people.
In the IDF Medical Corps Delegation to Haiti which is housed in tents, there are equal rights among all. Equal rights in Haiti, which was a nation of slaves, where even today there exists a great social divide between the rich and the poorest of the world's poor.
The IDF Medical Corps Delegation to Haiti which is housed in tents is the embodiment of ultimate human ethics. Brotherhood at its best. The epitome of the verse from the Biblical portion of Kedoshim, "Love your neighbor as yourself."
