IsraAID

IsraAID combines rapid emergency response with longer-term recovery, resilience, and disaster preparedness, rather than treating the delivery of immediate supplies as the endpoint of humanitarian assistance.[1] Its principal sectors are protection, education, health, and water, sanitation and hygiene, commonly abbreviated as WASH.[4] Programs also support refugees, displaced people, asylum seekers, and host communities, combining sectors because difficulties in one area can intensify needs in another.[4]

The organization is not part of the Israeli government.[1] Its founding vision was to bring Israeli expertise, technologies, techniques, and methodologies to vulnerable communities, including knowledge developed through Israel’s own experience of emergencies and other challenges.[5] Alongside that Israeli contribution, its operating model emphasizes international professional teams and local leadership: a majority of staff in each country office are recruited from the communities in which they work.[1]

The organization’s geographical reach expanded over successive reporting periods.[2][3] At its twentieth anniversary in 2021, it had responded to crises in more than 50 countries and was active in 14; a November 2023 account recorded work in 62 countries and operations in 16.[2][6] A separate cumulative account recorded assistance to more than five million people affected by human-made and climate-related disasters across 60 countries.[7] By November 2025, its reported record exceeded 100 emergencies in more than 65 countries.[3]

IsraAID was founded in 2001 as a coalition of Israeli organizations engaged in disaster relief and international development, and later became an independent nongovernmental organization.[1] Shachar Zahavi was identified as its founder in a 2005 account and as its founder-executive director in a 2010 program, which used the expanded name “The Israel Forum for International Humanitarian Aid.”[8][9] Its early structure was that of a coordinating body: in 2005 it brought together about 35 Jewish and Israeli humanitarian organizations, while an account of its 2011 Japan response described coordination among 17 groups.[8][10]

The coalition’s early disaster work included a 14-volunteer delegation that spent several weeks in Sri Lanka after the Southeast Asian tsunami, preparing food, providing medical care, and entertaining children.[8] Earlier diving missions assisted rescue operations after that tsunami and in Turkey, Georgia, and Romania.[11] These activities preceded the organization’s later development of sustained country programs and locally staffed operations.[1]

Yotam Polizer joined IsraAID in 2011 as its second employee and took a leadership role in the Japan response.[5] He recalled expecting a two-week assignment but remaining in Japan for three years, an experience that directed attention toward needs extending beyond immediate relief, especially trauma care for children.[5] Polizer became co-CEO in 2017 and global CEO in 2019.[5] A July 2022 organizational listing identified Michal Bar as head of emergency response and operations and recorded both Bar and Polizer as OLAM partners.[12]

A 2020 profile described the Tel Aviv-based organization as having 250 staff and a roster of 6,000 volunteers, including doctors, nurses, and engineers.[13] In a 2023 interview, Polizer described approximately 350 staff across 16 countries, including local employees trained and supported to assume leadership roles.[5] A 2025 account put the workforce at about 300, most of whom were not Israeli.[14] These figures refer to their respective reporting dates rather than a single staffing total.[5][14]

In April 2023, Polizer said the annual budget had increased from less than $1 million when he joined to more than $25 million.[15] He described substantial funding from bodies including the United Nations and World Bank, with 65 percent of the budget coming from private donors in the United States and additional support from donors in Israel.[15] Earlier fundraising arrangements included Jewish communal and private-sector support for particular emergency missions.[11]

Rapid needs assessment is an initial step in IsraAID’s emergency response process, alongside consultation with affected communities and local partners.[1] Decisions about deployment consider whether the organization can add value, the likely long-term needs, existing regional presence, and security.[1] The stated aim is to develop solutions with communities and continue beyond the immediate emergency into recovery and preparation for future disasters.[16]

Its “Communities First” approach combines local knowledge, experience, personnel, and tools with the organization’s technologies, resources, and professional expertise.[1] In practice, this includes training teachers, social workers, water-user committees, and other community members rather than relying exclusively on visiting specialists.[4][15] Polizer described the operational ambition as arriving within the first 72 hours and remaining after other responders leave, because physical, psychological, and economic recovery can take years.[15] Missions may continue for two or three years, and in some cases eight.[2]

The 2024 annual report listed operations in Colombia, Dominica and the Caribbean, Guatemala, Kenya, Uganda, South Sudan, Mozambique, Malawi, Israel, Vanuatu, Ukraine, and Morocco.[4] Papua New Guinea was identified as a new operation that year, and Canada as a new strategic office.[4] These locations represent the organization’s reported 2024 footprint, not a permanent list of country programs.[4]

Established missions also respond to subsequent emergencies in their regions.[4] During 2024, these included migration in Guatemala, Hurricane Beryl in St. Vincent and the Grenadines with support from the Dominica team, inter-community violence in Kenya, and an influx of refugees from the Democratic Republic of Congo into Uganda.[4] Other responses addressed an earthquake in Vanuatu, a cholera outbreak in South Sudan, and Cyclone Chido in Mozambique.[4] The organization links this capacity to existing local knowledge, partnerships, and trained personnel.[4]

The American Jewish Committee’s Asia Pacific Institute reports that its humanitarian fund has frequently supported IsraAID’s disaster assistance across the Asia-Pacific region, including in Fiji, the Philippines, Japan, Nepal, Vanuatu, and Sri Lanka.[17]

Following Hurricane Katrina in 2005, IsraAID planned a delegation of about 25 divers to search flooded homes in New Orleans, where potentially contaminated water made operations dangerous.[11] A small team arrived on September 10, administering first aid, rescuing abandoned pets, and locating hurricane victims.[11] The mission proceeded even though the United States administration said in mid-September that Israeli divers and physicians were not needed for search-and-rescue work.[11] Initial funders included the UJA Federation of Greater Toronto and Philadelphia-based CMS Companies, with further logistical and financial support from federations in Houston, Baton Rouge, and New Orleans and national Jewish organizations.[11]

Haiti became a major example of sustained engagement after the 2010 earthquake.[2] Tevel b’Tzedek worked under IsraAID’s auspices on continuing assistance, especially post-trauma treatment in refugee camps, alongside the Israel Center for the Treatment of Psychotrauma at Herzog Hospital.[18] IsraAID staff remained for eight years, developing local relationships and training Haitians who later contributed to emergency response.[19] After Hurricane Matthew in October 2016, workers distributed food and water and established an aid clinic in Port-au-Prince supplied through a shipment from MASHAV.[20]

When another earthquake struck Haiti in 2021, IsraAID and local partners focused on rural communities, supplying water-filtration systems, protective equipment, mental-health support, hygiene kits, and tarps.[19] In Torbeck, staff trained principals and teachers at four schools serving 1,000 students to operate a water-filtration system.[19] In Petite-Rivière-de-Nippes, a community of about 30,000 people, the team distributed filters and other supplies.[19] The return also enabled contact with people trained during the earlier mission.[2]

Japan’s magnitude 9.0 earthquake and tsunami on March 11, 2011, prompted another extensive response.[21] The disaster killed more than 18,000 people, injured thousands, and left about 250,000 homeless.[21] IsraAID was among the first foreign NGOs to respond, with operations in Miyagi Prefecture underway by the following week and distributions including mattresses, clothing, and chemical toilets.[21] A wider 53-member Israeli delegation carrying 62 tons of medical supplies was in Miyagi before the end of March.[21] IsraAID established a Japan and Pacific Earthquake and Tsunami Emergency Fund and prepared teams including first responders, search-and-rescue specialists, logisticians, emergency medical personnel, and water specialists.[10]

The Japan IsraAID Support Program, or JISP, extended the work into psychosocial recovery and local capacity building.[21] It selected eight cities in Miyagi and Fukushima prefectures for activities encompassing trauma care, resilience, youth leadership, skills training, and local economic and psychosocial capacity.[21] A 2020 profile described a trauma program that began after Polizer learned of a kindergarten that had lost eight children and lacked emotional support for children, teachers, and parents.[13] That account recorded expansion to ten cities and training for more than 3,000 teachers and social workers.[13]

After the 2016 Kumamoto earthquake, JISP distributed food and clean water to more than 2,000 people and provided psychosocial support.[21] Other activities following Japan’s April 2016 earthquakes included childcare centers and mobile health clinics.[20] When severe floods struck Okayama Prefecture in July 2018, the continuing Japan team helped local organizations with search and rescue, cleanup, and support for affected residents.[10]

Other deployments during 2016 combined practical assistance with medical and emotional support.[20] Four members assisted flood victims in the United Kingdom in January, repairing structural damage to homes and distributing food and blankets.[20] In Ecuador, workers provided medical treatment, shelter, psychological assistance, and other resources after the April earthquake, establishing a field hospital on April 23.[20] An eight-person team went to Baton Rouge after August floods that affected more than 60,000 homes and killed 13 people.[20] A 20-person team reached Amatrice, Italy, within 24 hours of the August 24 earthquake, offering temporary housing, food, water, and grief counseling.[20]

The regional model remained evident in November 2025, when a six-person emergency team traveled to Jamaica after Hurricane Melissa.[3] The deployment focused on water, sanitation, and hygiene and included mental-health experts.[3] Specialists came from offices in Colombia and Dominica; the latter office had been established in 2017 following Hurricane Maria.[3]

In northern Kenya, IsraAID initially planned to provide food and other necessities to the 100,000 residents of Kakuma refugee camp during the 2011 drought.[22] As the drought subsided and larger organizations supplied food, clothing, and medicine, it shifted toward longer-term assistance, including post-trauma counseling.[22] Eighteen camp residents were trained as social workers, most of whom subsequently helped fellow residents address trauma.[22]

A later water-access project in Kenya’s Turkana County followed several failed rainy seasons.[4] The work included a hydraulic survey, identification of water sources, drilling, installation of taps and associated infrastructure, repairs to 14 additional boreholes, and construction of four centralized water kiosks.[4] Water-user committees received training, and control of the resources was returned to local leaders.[4] The organization reported restoring safe-water access for 64,000 people.[4]

IsraAID’s response to migration included training, supplies, support, and distribution capabilities from 2012 onward.[20] During the 2015 European refugee crisis, it assisted arrivals in Greece and Italy with food, supplies, and medical care.[20] Its teams also worked with refugees in Serbia, Croatia, Jordan, and Iraq, providing emergency medical and psychological support, clothing, counseling, and art therapy for children.[23] During the first five weeks of the European operation, Polizer estimated that more than 50,000 people had received assistance.[23]

On Lesbos, teams helped Syrian refugees arriving by boat in 2015.[2] Polizer recalled a capsizing that December in which the team rescued everyone aboard, including a girl with severe hypothermia whom responders stabilized.[15] He recounted the girl’s father telling him, “My greatest enemy became my best friend.”[15] In another recollection, he described a boat reaching Greece in December 2018 with 153 people aboard despite being intended for at most 20 to 30 passengers.[15]

Longer-term support in Greece included the Sindos Community Center, established in 2018 with the Swiss organization Be A Robin.[13] Before the pandemic, it served a community of about 600 Syrian refugees, with 70 to 100 daily participants attending language classes, skills training, psychosocial activities, and cultural events.[13]

Afghan evacuations formed another part of the organization’s refugee work.[2] A 2021 anniversary account recorded IsraAID’s involvement in a mission that brought more than 160 Afghans, mostly women, to safety in the United Arab Emirates amid concern about violent Taliban retribution.[2] A November 2023 account described a 2021 mission led by Polizer that evacuated 205 girls after the Taliban takeover.[6] His emergency experience also included a 2014 mission assisting Yazidi victims of ISIS.[6]

In Sierra Leone, Polizer led a deployment during the Ebola outbreak at the request of then-CEO Shachar Zahavi, with the team remaining for almost nine months.[15] He recalled the work as frightening because of the reported high fatality rate and uncertainty about symptoms and transmission at the time.[15] In South Sudan, the organization established centers intended to help survivors of sexual assault recover and find employment.[15]

IsraAID’s response to Russia’s large-scale invasion of Ukraine became its largest emergency operation up to that time.[24] Work extended across Ukraine, Moldova, and Romania, with services established at the Moldova border within three days of deployment and a humanitarian logistics hub created in Romania.[24] During the first year, the organization reported supporting more than 330,000 people, collaborating with over 70 partners, and extending aid delivery to more than 30 Ukrainian regions.[24]

Moldova was a focus partly because its response infrastructure was limited and its closed airspace initially constrained supply transfers and refugee departures.[12] IsraAID was among the organizations choosing to concentrate where needs might be greatest.[12] A March 2022 deployment there provided psychosocial support, hygiene kits, and emergency equipment.[25] Subsequent programs included child-safe spaces and psychosocial services for displaced people, alongside training and salary support for Ukrainian psychologists and medical supplies delivered through partners.[24]

Water treatment became a central component in Mykolaiv after infrastructure destruction left residents without drinking water.[15] The first-year report, published in February 2023, recorded four installed reverse-osmosis systems, with additional systems and dispensers planned for a project intended to serve 60,000 people.[24] In April 2023, Polizer described 12 installed treatment systems supplying 40,000 people.[15] The figures represent different dated descriptions of installed facilities, service, and planned reach.[15][24]

Psychological assistance included cooperation with Ukraine’s first lady, Olena Zelenska, on support for people wounded in the war.[15] Polizer described training 60 psychologists to provide hospital-based trauma support and deploying psychologists after a helicopter crashed into a kindergarten.[15] In January 2023, he said the operation had raised nearly $15 million in financial assistance and more than $20 million worth of equipment, employed 30 field staff, and intended to remain for at least five years.[26] By April, he described more than 60 people working in Ukraine, including local water engineers and psychologists, and reiterated the five-year plan.[15]

After the October 7, 2023 attacks, IsraAID launched its first large-scale emergency response inside Israel.[27] Preparations began on October 8, and teams reached evacuation centers on October 9.[27] Initial activities combined psychosocial support, education, and logistics; as displaced communities moved into interim accommodation, programs expanded to therapeutic services and temporary schools.[27] One such school served residents of Kibbutz Be’eri in a hotel in Eilat.[27]

Programs developed with local authorities and NGOs also addressed Bedouin villages, Druze communities, and survivors of the Nova festival.[27] In its first-year response figures, IsraAID reported installing 55 protective spaces in 16 Bedouin villages, providing shelter for 2,000 people, and training more than 400 frontline service providers.[27] It also reported training 400 volunteers who formed emergency response teams in 140 vulnerable northern communities.[27] Polizer characterized recovery as a “marathon, not a sprint.”[6]

In 2024, the organization began facilitating humanitarian work in Gaza, initially helping international aid organizations navigate Israeli procedures, secure permits, and arrange deliveries.[14] Its subsequent support included medical and clean-water projects, funding travel for 30 non-Israeli doctors, and providing technical assistance to a partner delivering desalinated drinking water to 7,000 people daily.[14] For security reasons, it did not disclose partner names or display its logo at project sites.[14] Its estimate of facilitated assistance, including tents, food, and water, was 190,000 recipients.[14]

Training local professionals and transferring responsibility to communities are recurring features of IsraAID’s work. Examples include school water systems in Haiti and water-user committees in Kenya,[19][4] as well as trauma training for local professionals in Japan.[15] Its recovery model therefore connects Israeli technical and emergency-response expertise with the continued work of local teachers, health professionals, engineers, and community leaders.[1][4]

Its activities have also provided material for Jewish ethical education.[28] An educational guide uses the organization’s work in Dominica and teacher training to explore a teaching attributed to Maimonides about helping people become self-sufficient.[28] A commentary in SAPIR Journal presents IsraAID and similar organizations’ emergency work as service undertaken in the name of Israel and Jewish values; this is the author’s interpretation rather than an organizational mission statement.[29]

The organization’s established country teams illustrate how long-term humanitarian presence can also support future emergency action.[4] Earlier relationships and training contributed to renewed response in Haiti, while the Dominica office supported operations elsewhere in the Caribbean.[19][3] Its 2024 reporting explicitly links regional response capacity to partnerships and knowledge accumulated between disasters.[4]

An episode involving Afghan refugee women in August 2021 placed IsraAID’s rescue work alongside Israeli refugee-entry policy.[30] Israel’s interior minister refused the group entry despite the organization’s commitment to relocate them to Canada within a month.[30] The women were eventually admitted to Switzerland and granted asylum with IsraAID’s assistance and advocacy.[30]

Its Gaza activities have taken place amid significant disputes over humanitarian access and responsibility for conditions during the war.[14] Operational reach figures, including the estimate of 190,000 people receiving facilitated assistance, are organizational estimates rather than independently established counts, and partner identities were withheld because of security risks.[14]