Israel Evacuates Syrian White Helmets Stranded On Golan Heights
The Israeli military evacuated hundreds of members of the White Helmets, a Syrian volunteer organisation, from the volatile frontier area on the Golan Heights and transported them to Jordan, following a request by the United States and its European allies, officials said on Sunday.
It was the first such Israeli intervention in Syria’s lengthy civil war, now in its eighth year. Jordan confirmed that 800 Syrian citizens entered its territory to be resettled in Western countries.
The members of the White Helmets, a Syrian search-and-rescue organization, and their families had been stranded along the frontier with the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights following the latest Syrian government offensive in southwestern Syria.
The Israeli military said the overnight operation was an “exceptional humanitarian gesture” done at the request of the United States and its European allies due to “an immediate threat to the (Syrians’) lives.”
The military said its actions did not reflect a change to Israel’s nonintervention policy in Syria’s war, where all the warring parties are considered hostile.
The Syrians would remain in Jordan for three months before moving on to Britain, Germany and Canada, the Jordanian Foreign Ministry’s spokesperson Mohammed al-Kayed said. “The request was approved based on pure humanitarian reasons,” he added.
Raed Saleh, head of the Syrian Civil Defense, as the White Helmets are also known, said a number of volunteers and their families were evacuated from a dangerous, besieged area and had reached Jordan.
He did not elaborate on the numbers of those evacuated.
The Associated Press first reported last Friday that US officials were finalising plans to evacuate several hundred Syrian civil defense workers and their families from southwest Syria as Russian-backed government forces closed in on the Quneitra province, along the Golan Heights frontier.
The officials said the White Helmets, who have enjoyed backing from the United States and other Western nations for years, were likely to be targeted by Syrian forces as they retook control of the southwest.
Evacuation plans were accelerated after last week’s NATO summit in Brussels.