The IDF has helped tens of thousands of Venezuelans to return to their homes at structures that were partially damaged by the June 24 earthquake after Israeli experts have certified the structures as safe, Venezuela delegation leader IDF Brig. Gen. (res.) Yossi Pinto recently told The Jerusalem Post in an exclusive interview.
These tens of thousands of Venezuelans lived in some hundreds of buildings which initial checks by the combined Israeli-Venezuelan engineering teams have already established are safe enough – this out of many thousands of structures which still need to be evaluated, Pinto told the Post.
Speaking to the Post from Venezuela before a ceremony on Tuesday with Venezuelan Acting President Delcy Rodriguez, who thanked the Israeli delegation for their efforts, Pinto stated that the IDF presented their system on July 17 to Venezuela regarding the several thousand structures in question.
The system will map out which structures might be usable, or need to be demolished, how to carry out the demolition process, and how much time it will take until new structures can be built.
This system and the mapping-out process have been determined by a staff of around 35 professional Israeli experts in engineering, disaster operations, and related technologies, said Pinto.
Next, he stated that the system is designed for intake, tracking, and analysis of damaged structures both for the national government as well as the smaller district areas.
IDF categorizing structures based on damage level, consequences
According to the IDF Venezuela delegation chief, part of the system categorizes the structures and then places them on different tracks according to the level of damage and the consequences of that damage.
The structures the IDF has evaluated and which the Venezuelans continue to evaluate include some houses, some 20-floor skyscrapers (some dozens), and some 10-floor buildings.
Regarding buildings which are too badly damaged for Venezuelans to return to, until there is a solution, they will be living in tents for an extended period, he said.
Part of what the IDF experts have tried to do, he noted, is hand over and train Venezuelan experts in smart technology professional resources and new disaster-oriented uses of artificial intelligence.
Given that the Israeli delegation was only meant to assist temporarily, Pinto said the IDF still has committed to assisting from a distance, with the new technologies making it easier for Israel to track Venezuela’s progress in disaster mapping.
Further, he said that the IDF carried out a similar disaster mapping assistance project in Thailand around a year ago, such that it feels very experienced in aiding foreign countries with such situations.
He warned that it would take “many years to rehabilitate” the area, and that the exact amount of time would also depend on how efficiently the Venezuelan government acted regarding the process.
ON JULY 6, the IDF had started mapping out and categorizing at the time what was believed to be around 1,300 (now the number has risen to several thousand) damaged Venezuelan buildings for demolition or potentially being salvageable following the tragic June 24 earthquakes, which killed at least 5,300 people, but potentially more.
Led originally by IDF Brig. Gen. Elad Edri, who was later replaced by Pinto, the Israeli delegation throughout has been much smaller and has a different focus than recent larger missions to Turkey and elsewhere.
If in some past missions, the IDF delegation had over 400 members to assist, Edri noted on July 6 would not rise much above 30-40 at the request of Venezuela.
Further, if in other instances, the IDF was used for immediate rescue missions, in Venezuela Edri said that the IDF’s focus has been providing engineering experts to assess the vulnerability of those buildings which are damaged, but still standing.
In addition, Edri explained that the IDF engineers have provided guidance to Venezuela about what to do with the debris from the damaged buildings.
According to multiple options which 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.
IDF visits Venezuelan Jewish community during rescue mission
Despite this, both Pinto and Edri have 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 multiple Friday night Shabbat prayer services and dinners, IDF officials have 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 an initial 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.
Pinto noted that the July 17 presentation was the culmination of the early and later weeks of work by the delegation.
Following the June 24 earthquake, the IDF delegation flew out of Israel on June 30, landing 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 had 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 flying into Valencia and then traveling to Caracas domestically.
