IsraAID and JDC bring clean water and care to Venezuela after twin earthquakes

Two earthquakes of magnitude 7.2 and 7.5 struck northern Venezuela 39 seconds apart on the evening of 24 June 2026, levelling homes along the Caribbean coast and in the Caracas area. By 9 July the official toll had passed 3,800 dead and 16,700 injured, with close to 18,000 people left homeless, according to an update from the Jewish Federations of North America. The coastal state of La Guaira was the hardest hit.

IsraAID, Israel's largest non-governmental humanitarian agency, sent an emergency response team that by the start of July was working in Caracas and La Guaira. The team carried out rapid needs assessments with local partners, handed out emergency supplies and installed water filters. At a camp for about 700 displaced people in La Guaira it set up clean-water equipment and ran emotional-support and wellbeing sessions for children. Later in July the disaster-relief charity All Hands and Hearts reported working with IsraAID and Wine to Water to install filtration systems and train volunteers in churches that had become shelters, including one in Playa Grande.

The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) and the Jewish Agency for Israel also deployed. Working through the Hebraica community centre in Caracas, JDC helped deliver food to about 5,000 people, supported hundreds of volunteers serving both the Jewish community and the wider public, and ran a day camp for 143 children. Its recovery plans focus on housing, psychological support, health care and water and sanitation.

Other Israeli and Jewish groups joined in, among them SmartAID, which says it sent a 17-member search-and-rescue team within 48 hours and then focused on solar power, water purification and satellite internet for camps and clinics, as well as ZAKA, Natan, CADENA and World Jewish Relief. Israel also sent a small delegation of diplomats and Home Front Command engineers to help assess damaged buildings. The effort was notable because Venezuela cut diplomatic ties with Israel in 2009; eJewishPhilanthropy reported that the aid was warmly received, and that interim president Delcy Rodriguez publicly thanked Israel.

IsraAID has responded to disasters in dozens of countries since its founding in 2001, and specialises in clean water, mental-health support and training local responders so that help continues after international teams leave.