Early on April 25, when initial reports reached Israel about the crisis facing Israeli babies born to surrogate mothers in Nepal, Interior Minister Gilad Erdan opened a little war room of sorts in his home. According to the information trickling in, there were some 20-day-old babies, some of them premature, born in Nepal to Israeli citizens. Most of those Israelis were same-sex couples, trapped there by the earthquake that has devastated the country. The family members of these concerned new parents described a severe shortage of baby food. They told of hospitals in the capital, Kathmandu, which had been turned to rubble, and of cars that had become incubators for the infants who required oxygen.
According to official procedure in Nepal, babies born to surrogate mothers can leave the country only after an arduous bureaucratic process that often lasts weeks. It took Erdan just a few hours to maneuver around the obstacles imposed by the Nepalese government, as well as Israel’s own bureaucratic hurdles. As the minister responsible for distributing ID cards, he coordinated the effort to grant Israeli citizenship to these infants with the Foreign Ministry. This meant that the babies could receive Israeli citizenship papers through the Israeli Embassy in Nepal, even though the actual building was damaged and its staff was forced to work in the courtyard. While the problem of granting these babies citizenship was being resolved, Israel was also handling the logistics of sending aid to Nepal and airlifting the infants from there.
On the afternoon of April 27, the first babies evacuated from Nepal landed at the Sde Dov airfield in Tel Aviv. They arrived on Red Magen David planes, staffed with a medical team that cared for them throughout the flight. After three nerve-wracking and sleepless days, the tearful parents stepped off the plane with their babies in their arms. They went out of their way to praise the state for its rapid rescue efforts.
While the rescue of the remaining infants continues, additional efforts are underway to find a solution for the surrogate mothers who are still carrying the children of parents from Israel in their womb. On Monday, Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein approved bringing these women to Israel on a one-time basis, if they agree, so that they can complete their pregnancies in safety.
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