Israeli medics, Syrian war victims: ‘They are just human like us’
QUNEITRA OBSERVATION POINT— Wounds from the Syrian civil war bring them to the doorstep of a decadesold enemy.
Some have been shot. Others suffer burns from barrel-bomb explosions. Many have life-threatening wounds. Some cross the border in a state of hysteria; others are frightened they are about to be imprisoned by the Israeli army.
Instead, there are reassuring words in foreign-accented Arabic from Sgt. Michel Pushkov, a 21-year old medic. “Don’t worry. We’re friends. We’re going to take care of you.”
The soldier is part of an Israeli military medical unit that for the last three years has been providing first aid at the border to hundreds of Syrians seeking assistance, even though the two countries remain in a state of war. Some 2,000 have been transferred from the border for treatment to Israeli hospitals.
Before the outbreak of the Syrian civil war in 2011, such outreach was unthinkable. The two countries fought three times between 1948 and 1973, and fought a proxy war in Lebanon. In 1981, Israel annexed Syria’s Golan Heights in a unilateral action opposed by the United Nations. Today, the Syrian regime remains allied with Israel’s biggest foe — Iran — while some of the Islamist opposition have pledged to strike at Israel eventually.
The medical help is a modest humanitarian gesture by Israel — other countries in the region have absorbed millions of refugees. But it is eroding long-held stereotypes. “We know them from wars. They are an enemy country. But, like every country, you have to distinguish between extremists and you have the innocent,” said Sgt. First Class Jonathan Achituv.
Sitting in their ambulance about one- and-a-half kilometres from the Syrian border village of Quneitra — on a road that parallels the dividing line between the Syrian Golan and the Israeli-controlled Golan — the medics can hear artillery fire from Syria.
Amid a lull in the fighting, they talk about the dangers, trauma and transformation of treating wounded from the civil war.
During periods of intense fighting between Syrian government forces and rebels, Achituv’s team would get called daily to the border to treat the injured. After coordinating transfer of the wounded at the border with rebel groups, the injured Syrians are screened by Israeli soldiers to ensure they aren’t hiding weapons.
Sometimes such screenings seem unnecessary. Achituv can’t forget a 13-year old boy who arrived with two legs and an arm blown off.
“He was mumbling and shouting, and the mother was standing on the side crying . . . He wouldn’t even let us hold his hand to give him an infusion,” Achituv said. “That’s the point where you realize, it’s not his fault. He was just at home, and there was some kind of attack, and now he’s going to be handicapped his whole life.”
Pushkov, the Arabic-speaking member of the team, tries to make small talk about their homes and what life was like in Syria. For children, he usually brings balloons. “They are very afraid because we are an enemy. They don’t know what will happen.”
Nearly 50 kilometres east, in the orthopedic ward of Ziv Hospital in the northern Israeli city of Safed, a Syrian rebel reclined in a bed with a view the Sea of Galilee and recalled his first arrival in Israel. After his shoulder bone was severed by sniper fire a
year ago, doctors in Syria said that only treatment could save the arm.
“I expected to see terrible things. I expected disgusting treatment,” said Ahmed, who declined to give his real name because getting treatment in Israel could put him at risk back in Syria. “The (soldiers) said, don’t worry, we will take care of you and we’ll fix your hand.”
With his upper arm stabilized in metal brace, hospital staff said the bone is on the mend — though it took two cross-border visits.
The former government soldier pulled back his hospital frock to reveal a tattoo of former Syrian president Hafez Assad on his right chest — a sign of loyalty to the regime before he defected to the rebels.
Ahmed said his two stints in Israel had changed his views, and he had even learned a few Hebrew words. “Ever since I was in first grade, they taught us that Israel was your first and last enemy,” said Ahmed. “This changes the way I see the other side. I saw the good side of Israel.”
Back at the Israel-Syrian border, the Israeli medics said their work is humanizing their neighbours as well. Sgt. Ilan Bar recalled a Syrian infant that she and the crew helped save. “I wonder what will he think of us when he is older? Will his parents even tell him?”
For young adults in a country that often sees their neighbours as “bent on destroying us, it’s important to for us to see that they are not all hostile. It’s important to know that not everyone is our enemy.”
Pushkov concurred. Regardless of who comes across the border, “there’s no politics here. We just want to give them the right treatment. They are just human like us. There’s no difference.”
“This changes the way I see the other side. I saw the good side of Israel.”
AHMED A SYRIAN REBEL, ON TWO OPERATIONS IN ISRAEL TO SAVE HIS ARM