The IDF at 8:00 a.m. (3:00 p.m. Israel time) on Monday started mapping out and categorizing buildings in Venezuela as either due to be demolished or potentially salvageable despite being damaged, following the tragic June 24 earthquakes, which killed at least 3,300 people, but probably thousands more.
Led by IDF Brig. Gen. Elad Edri, the Israeli delegation is much smaller and has a different focus than recent missions to Turkey and elsewhere.
If, in some past missions, the IDF delegation had over 400 members to assist, Edri noted that this delegation has only around 30, at Venezuela’s request.
IDF’s focus in Venezuela centered around providing engineering
Further, if, in other instances, the IDF was used for immediate rescue missions, Edri said that the IDF’s focus in Venezuela has been providing engineering experts to assess the vulnerability of damaged buildings that are still standing.
In addition, Edri explained that the IDF engineers have provided guidance to Venezuela on how to handle debris from the damaged buildings.
According to multiple options that the IDF engineers offered to the Venezuelan government, he stated that Caracas decided on trying to reincorporate debris into later building efforts through a recycling process.
Another example of how this operation has been different is that IDF Col. Golan Vach, who is well-known in Israel having run the Turkey rescue mission in 2023 and also managed the mission to find the body of Israel’s final hostage, Ran Gvili in early 2026, has not been involved.
Had the mission been a regular rescue mission, it is possible that he might have been.
Venezuela received IDF soldiers with open arms
Despite this, Edri said that Venezuela has received the smaller expert team with open arms, that the soldiers have kept their uniforms on with the symbol of Israel prominently displayed, that they have visited with the 5,000 Venezuelan Jewish community, and have been well protected by local Venezuelan security forces.
The Venezuelan government’s receipt of Israeli assistance contrasts with the complete cut-off in relations between the countries dating back to 2009.
During a visit to the Jewish community for a Friday night Shabbat prayer service and dinner, he said that the Venezuelan-Jewish attendees had tears in their eyes from seeing the IDF uniforms up close.
A major accomplishment of the Israeli delegation was to develop and propose a multi-year plan for mapping and rebuilding the disaster areas, which Venezuela approved only in a matter of days, which would normally take weeks or months to come up with.
Edri said that the severity of the disaster warranted more rapid out-of-the-box thinking.
Following the June 24 earthquake, the IDF delegation flew out of Israel on June 30 and landed in Venezuela on July 1 after multiple complex stopovers, said Edri.
In addition, he said that other delegations who wanted to assist with the disaster have sometimes needed four to five days of travel and waiting in order to arrive at the disaster site given the current state of chaos in Venezuela.
Even the IDF could not fly directly into Caracas; instead, it flew into Valencia and then traveled to Caracas domestically.
Edri anticipated that the IDF delegation would return to Israel on July 12, but an IDF spokesperson added that the date could be adjusted in accordance with instructions from the Israeli political and diplomatic echelon.
