Syrian fighters find respite in Israeli hospital

and their problems make me very sad,” he says.

Since Ziv Medical Center first opened its doors to seven injured Syrians on February 16, 2013, it has treated more than 600 people from the war-torn country. Almost 70% of Syria’s medical community have fled and most healthcare facilities have been damaged or destroyed since the fighting began in 2011.

Once Syrians learnt of the medical facilities at the 350-bed hospital in Safed — located west of the Golan Heights, 11 km from the border with Lebanon and 30 km from the Syrian frontier — more and more of them began making the journey to Israel.

The doctors reel off the cases they have handled — the sevenyear-old boy whose parents were told he would never walk again even after 17 surgeries in Syria but regained the use of one leg after one operation in Safed and 12-year-old Ahmed, who lost both eyes and a hand and was brought to the border on a donkey led by his brother.

Of the 610 Syrians treated at the hospital, 90% were men and 17% were children. All but one child will have some form of permanent disability.

“We try to save arms, legs, hands and feet because we think of the future of the patients. We want to give them the best chance of getting back to a normal life,” says the doctor.

With the IS-linked Liwa Shuhada al-Yarmouk (Yarmouk Martyrs Brigade) active in Syria less than 35 km from the Israeli border, Israeli officials and the staff of Ziv Medical Center believe there won’t be let up in the number of Syrians making their way to the hospital.

(The writer was in Israel at the invitation of the American Jewish Committee’s Project Interchange)