On June 24, 2026, two massive earthquakes — a 7.2 followed by a 7.5 — struck western Venezuela near Caracas. More than 1,200 people are dead. Thousands more are injured, displaced, or still trapped. Rescue teams are racing against the clock.
Israel immediately began preparing to help.
Its Foreign Ministry announced preparations for a search-and-rescue delegation. Israeli NGOs — IsraAID, NATAN, and ZAKA — mobilized doctors, mental health professionals, water and sanitation engineers, and rescue specialists.
On June 26, anti-Israel journalist Max Blumenthal took to social media to claim Israel wasn’t really offering help, but staging an invasion.
“Israel’s infiltration of Venezuela begins under cover of earthquake aid,” he wrote, digging up the fact that Hugo Chávez expelled Israeli diplomats in 2009 during the Gaza conflict.
Think about that for a moment.
Dozens of countries rushed aid to Venezuela — the United States, Turkey, Iran, Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, Cuba, the UN. Not one of them was accused of “infiltration.” Only Israel.
And, as usual, the accusation is completely false.
There is zero evidence for Blumenthal’s claim. The Venezuelan government itself did not accuse Israel of attempts at infiltration, and has not rejected Israel’s aid.
Furthermore, as Blumenthal himself pointed out, Israel has no embassy in Caracas. There is no diplomatic foothold to “infiltrate” from. Any Israeli team entering Venezuela would do so openly, with the full knowledge and explicit approval of Venezuelan authorities. They would work alongside American, Turkish, Iranian, and UN teams — in plain sight, doing documented work: pulling people from rubble, running field clinics, providing trauma counseling, restoring clean water.
Israel Leads in Disaster Response
Israel is one of the best disaster responders on the planet. That was the verdict of the World Health Organization, which in 2016 gave Israel’s emergency medical teams its highest designation — the only country in the world to achieve it at the time. Since then, only China has been added to the list.
Israeli teams set up fully functional field hospitals — surgery suites, intensive care units, the works — within hours of landing. After the 2010 Haiti earthquake, a 220-person Israeli delegation treated over 1,100 patients, performed 319 surgeries, and delivered 16 babies. In Nepal in 2015, they were among the first and largest international teams on the ground.
Israel has deployed aid to dozens of countries across decades — including nations with no diplomatic relations with Israel whatsoever. It helped after the 1985 Mexico City earthquake. The 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. The 2016 Italy earthquake. Mudslides in Sierra Leone. A dam collapse in Brazil.
They don’t do this for political leverage. They do it because it’s what they do.
Israel-Venezuela Relations
As for Venezuela’s “hostile relations” with Israel — yes, Chávez expelled Israeli diplomats 17 years ago. Maduro continued that hostility. But natural disasters have a way of cutting through political grudges. Any Israeli team entering Venezuela would do so with the full knowledge and approval of Venezuelan authorities. There is no Israeli embassy in Caracas to “infiltrate” from. There is no covert agenda being hidden behind medical kits and rescue dogs.
There are just people trying to pull survivors from the rubble.
Bottom Line
When the earth shakes and people are dying, Israel shows up — in Haiti, in Nepal, in Sierra Leone, in Italy, in Brazil, and now in Venezuela, a country that expelled its diplomats and has spent years aligning with its enemies. That’s what a nation with genuine humanitarian values looks like in action. The only thing Max Blumenthal exposed with his conspiracy theory is that some people’s hatred for Israel runs so hot, they can’t tell the difference between a Mossad agent and a doctor delivering babies in a disaster zone.
Sources
Jerusalem Post, X, Times of Israel, Jewish Virtual Library, IDF, Times of Israel, Science Direct
