IDF Home Front Command search and rescue teams arrived in southern Turkey on Tuesday and immediately began rescue operations, working throughout the night to find survivors trapped under the rubble.

By Wednesday morning, the Israeli rescue teams succeeded in rescuing four people, including a 23-year-old woman and a boy in two separate areas in the city of Kahramanmaraş, and two trapped people in the city of Gaziantep, one of whom had to endure an emergency amputation of his leg by IDF medics before he could be pulled from the rubble.

Maj. (Res.) Matan Schneider, the team’s commander, described the rescue of the woman, saying that the team was on their way to a site when they were summoned by locals who heard sounds from the rubble. “We began a complex rescue operation that lasted four and a half hours…eventually we rescued a 23-year-old woman, suffering only from a fracture in her hip.”

The video below shows the rescue team launching their search.

Another IDF delegation departed for Turkey on Wednesday to establish a field hospital. “As part of Israel’s “Olive Branches” humanitarian aid delegation, an IDF advanced team landed in Türkiye on Wednesday morning and will begin establishing a field hospital,” a statement from the IDF spokesperson said. “The team will provide medical assistance to individuals rescued from the sites hit by the earthquakes.”

(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)