In the early hours of Sunday morning, shortly after midnight, Deputy Prime Minister and Interior Minister Eli Shai paid a surprise visit to the ZAKA Rescue and Recovery volunteers in the Carmel forest to praise their dedication and offer encouragement as they continued their sacred work.

The volunteers, with the participation and assistance of the Galil-Carmel Rescue Unit, the Fire Service, Israel Police, Israel Electricity Company and the ZAKA Jeep Search and Rescue Unit, were working relentlessly at the site of the bus inferno on the Carmel hillside in a final push to collect all the last human remains before the funerals today, Sunday.

In order to reach the site at which ZAKA volunteers uncovered the chilling sight Friday afternoon of the 15 bodies, fixed in a collective embrace after a futile attempt to escape the raging inferno, the ZAKA volunteers were forced to rappel down the hillside, attached on ropes to the roadside. At the site, they slowly and painstakingly sifted through the charred earth and soot to uncover the last of the human remains, in order to ensure a full Jewish burial for the victims. The recovery work had been halted on Friday afternoon with the onset of the Sabbath and resumed, under the glare of spotlights, on Saturday evening.

Deputy Prime Minister and Interior Minister Eli Shai: “The people of Israel owe you much gratitude for the holy work that you have been doing in the past few days since the outbreak of the fire. On a personal note, I would like to offer you my encouragement. It is particularly heart-warming to see, up close, the holy work that you are doing.”

Hezki Farkash, ZAKA Operations Commander, Northern Command, a veteran with the ZAKA Rescue and Recovery organization since 2002, briefed the Minister on the activities of the ZAKA volunteers that lasted from Thursday evening through the early hours of Sunday morning. “This was the most difficult and complex incident that we have ever had to deal with in the northern region. Our volunteers displayed immense personal courage as they worked to recover the bodies from the bus and the surrounding hillside, even as the fire continued to rage. Another team of ZAKA volunteers assisted in the identification of the charred bodies and volunteers from other regions remain on standby, should the situation change.”

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(YWN Israel Desk)