Thousands of displaced Lebanese families began returning to villages and towns in southern Lebanon after the official announcement of a cease-fire between Israel and Hezbollah and the establishment of an international mechanism to monitor its implementation, only to find the same landscape of ruin and denial waiting for them. Senior Israeli and Lebanese officials denied on Thursday that there had been any Israeli withdrawal from occupied southern Lebanon, after a U.S. State Department official said Israel had pulled back from parts of the territory it occupies in its war with Hezbollah in what the official called a "good faith" gesture toward Lebanon's government.
The Border as a Managed Wound
The cease-fire did not end the machinery of control on the ground. Reuters reported that after a months-long military blockade on a Palestinian town in the West Bank, the Israeli army this week permitted residents to remove some of the roadblocks it had installed in April, but continues to bar the town's 21,000 residents from accessing the West Bank's main north-south highway. The same state apparatus that speaks in the language of security and monitoring keeps roads closed, movement restricted, and whole communities boxed in by force.
In Gaza, that apparatus keeps producing casualties even when the headlines drift elsewhere. A Bedouin Israeli civilian contractor working with the country's Defense Ministry was killed in an operational accident in Gaza earlier on Wednesday, the Israeli military said. Raad Abu al-Kiyan, a bulldozer operator from the town of Hura in southern Israel, was killed while in a building collapse in the Strip. He is the first Israeli citizen to be killed in Gaza since February. The language is bureaucratic, but the result is plain enough: workers and civilians are still being fed into the machinery.
The Human Cost of Permanent Emergency
The war's damage is not limited to the dead and displaced. Nadav Wiersch's telephone never stops ringing. "Excuse me," he says. "I can't miss a call." Some talk to him in a whisper, others anxiously. Anxiety, sleep disorders, domestic violence, eating disorders, road accidents. Statistic after statistic reveals the unprecedented impact of the war on Israelis' mental health. The state counts the damage after the fact, but the social wreckage is already embedded in daily life.
Meanwhile, the official choreography of international oversight continues to perform its own usefulness. The cease-fire in Lebanon came with an international mechanism to monitor its implementation, the sort of arrangement that promises order while leaving the armed actors intact. Senior Israeli and Lebanese officials still denied that Israel had withdrawn from occupied southern Lebanon, despite the U.S. State Department official's description of a partial pullback as a "good faith" gesture. The gap between diplomatic language and territorial control remains wide enough to drive a convoy through.
Aid, Branding, and the NGO Mirage
Far from the front lines, Israel is preparing to send an aid delegation to Venezuela following the earthquakes that hit the country on Thursday, the Foreign Ministry said. "The Ministry is conducting a situation assessment with the relevant authorities in Israel and is examining the options for assistance," it stated. The Health Ministry is also preparing to send a medical aid delegation to Venezuela, including forming medical, logistics, and emergency response teams that will join the effort, pending coordination with and approval from the Foreign Ministry.
The offers of aid came after a magnitude 7.2 earthquake hit about 160 kilometers west of Caracas on Thursday, followed less than a minute later by a magnitude 7.5 tremor, according to the US Geological Survey. The USGS, using predictive modeling to estimate the death toll, said it would most likely run into the thousands, with a substantial probability of exceeding 10,000.
Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael-Jewish National Fund (KKL-JNF) announced on Thursday that it is preparing to provide aid totaling hundreds of thousands of shekels to Venezuela's Jewish communities. This includes 500 families who were evacuated from their homes. KKL-JNF chairman Eyal Ostrinsky spoke with Roberto Mishkin, a senior leader of the Jewish community in Venezuela, and KKL-JNF Venezuela's CEO, who updated him on the situation. "KKL is committed to Jewish communities in the Diaspora, which are an inseparable part of us both in routine times and in emergencies. Just as we were there during Operation Roaring Lion system in Beit Shemesh, Beersheba, Dimona, and Arad with communities that suffered severe damage and extreme upheaval, so we will be there for our brothers in Venezuela in their time of need," Ostrinsky said.
There are no reported casualties within the Jewish community in Caracas so far, Miguel Trozman, one of the heads of the Confederation of Jewish Associations of Venezuela (CAIV), told Walla. "Many members of the Jewish community chose to go through this difficult night together and are now sleeping in the Jewish community center in the city," he said.
Meanwhile, four member organizations of the Society for International Development (SID Israel) have begun activating their response teams in order to assist. IsraAID, Israel's largest non-governmental humanitarian aid agency, confirmed that it is deploying an emergency response team to the South American country. "IsraAID's initial team will include emergency response specialists and humanitarian experts from the organization's ongoing mission in Colombia and its global Emergency Response Team," the NGO said. The staff will focus on "mental health and psychological first aid, water, sanitation and hygiene, and rapid needs assessment in affected communities," IsraAID added.
The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) is coordinating with local Jewish communities to provide food, clean water, medicine, and emergency shelters, as well as preparing for Caracas International Airport to reopen so it can deploy its own emergency response team. SmartAID is working with Venezuelan partners to assess urgent humanitarian needs and will deliver equipment and emergency relief supplies. Natan Worldwide Disaster Relief is sending a team of medical and psychosocial support professionals to "conduct a rapid needs assessment and lay the groundwork for a broader humanitarian response in the days ahead."
"Humanitarian organizations don't build emergency response capacity when disaster strikes – they build it over many years," the director of Humanitarian Assistance at SID Israel noted. "The ability to respond quickly is rooted in long-term investment in preparedness, trusted partnerships, and sustained engagement with local communities. Even in a complex environment like Venezuela, where Israel has no diplomatic relations, Israeli humanitarian organizations are able to rely on well-established professional networks, local partners, regional teams, and staff already operating nearby to begin responding within hours. The earthquake in Venezuela is yet another reminder that lasting partnerships and a continuous presence on the ground are what make fast, effective, and life-saving humanitarian action possible."
The global state chorus followed quickly. US President Donald Trump said that the two earthquakes that hit Venezuela earlier in the day had "left a devastating number of deaths," without citing any official casualty figures. "The two major earthquakes that just hit the great people of Venezuela are both massive in scale and have left a devastating number of deaths," Trump said in a post on Truth Social. "The USA stands ready, willing, and able to help! I have instructed all agencies of our government to get ready to move quickly. We will be there for our new and great friends. Early reports are not good."
The Chinese Foreign Ministry said that China would do what it could to assist Venezuela. No Chinese casualties or injuries have been reported so far, according to the authorities. Spain's Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez offered his support to Venezuela, with Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares adding that Spain was ready to supply any emergency aid required. "Spain and myself offer our full support to the Venezuelan people following tonight's devastating earthquakes," Sanchez posted on X/Twitter. "Our thoughts are with the victims and their families."
President of Brazil Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva similarly declared the nation's support for the Venezuelan government's recovery efforts and directed the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Brazilian Embassy in Caracas to assess how Brazil could help. "I reaffirm our determination to support the government of Acting President Delcy Rodríguez in the recovery of affected areas of this sister nation, whose people have given proof of great resilience in the face of adversities," he posted to his X account on Thursday morning.