Israel to send generators, medicines, medical equipment to Ukraine

The Israeli Foreign Ministry is preparing new shipments of humanitarian aid to help Ukraine cope with the attacks on its infrastructure.

Twenty large generators at a cost of around $1 million will be sent through Europe into Ukraine. Israel’s Mashav international development program is also sending about $1 million worth of medicine and medical equipment to Ukraine in the near future, The Times of Israel reports.

Despite ongoing attacks on Ukrainian civilian infrastructure, Israel is considering permanently reopening its embassy in Kyiv, cycling rotations of diplomats through the Ukrainian capital.

The Foreign Ministry is currently waiting for security recommendations from Israel’s Shin Bet security service before making a decision, an Israeli official told The Times of Israel on November 27.

The embassy is currently closed, though since May it has been periodically reopened for two-week stretches. When they are not in Kyiv, Ambassador Michael Brodsky and his staff work out of Warsaw, Poland.

With Russia stepping up its missile and drone attacks on Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities in recent weeks, the embassy has remained closed due to safety concerns since late September.

None of the embassy’s local staff has been harmed in the strikes, and Israeli diplomats are in touch with them daily.

The embassy staff was initially moved to the western city of Lviv on February 21, three days before the start of the war. They were relocated five days later to a hotel in the Polish border city of Przemysl, where they spent much of their time at the often chaotic border crossings, helping Israeli citizens flee the country in the early weeks of the war.