IDF discloses scope of Israeli aid to Syrians afflicted by civil war
More than 110 assistance operations since last August
Israel treated hundreds of Syrian ill and sent hundreds of tons of humanitarian aid to the war-torn country over the past year, in a project dubbed Operation Good Neighbor, the IDF disclosed on Wednesday.
Launched in June 2016, the initiative aims to provide civilian aid while avoiding involvement in the Syrian civil war. More than 110 aid operations have taken place since August 2016 as part of the initiative.
“This project has a significant impact on Israel’s security,” Brig.-Gen. Yaniv Ashur said during a briefing with journalists close to the border. “We have learned from the Americans who lost the [support of the] Iraqi population. We realized that we could do more for the population near our border than what we were doing at the time.”
While Israel has stayed out of the fighting taking place across the Golan border, the IDF has begun working with international organizations and donors to transfer aid to more than 200,000 Syrians living in villages nearby.
According to Ashur, the IDF is in contact with the Syrians across the border in order to determine what aid is needed and when.
“We have several contact people who each deal with one specific issue, be it those who need medical care, water, electricity, education or food,” he said.
In the past year, more than
360 tons of food and flour, 456,000 liters of gasoline, 100 tons of clothes (including 55 tons of warm clothes), 12 tons of shoes as well as electric generators and mobile caravans to use as clinics or classrooms have been given to Syrian civilians with the help of the IDF.
In addition, 12,000 packages of baby formula and 1,800 packages of diapers have been sent across the border as well as 600 meters of piping to reestablish ruined water infrastructure, giving 5,000 people running water in the villages.
A major aspect of the operation remains medical treatment.
The IDF began helping wounded and sick Syrians in 2013 and since then more than 3,000 Syrians have been treated in Israel. In the last year alone, over 1,000 children have been treated in Israel.
“Once a week a busload of sick children comes into Israel,” Ashur said, adding that the army “realized that we also need to provide follow-up visits for them,” especially for those who have chronic illnesses.
More than 600 children and their parents come to Israel every month for medical treatment, he said. The children return to Syria with backpacks full of clothes while their mothers return with backpacks full of medicine that their child might need.
Both combatants and civilians arrive at the border; all of the wounded are given emergency field treatment to stabilize them before the IDF transfers them to hospitals. There, medical care is provided free of charge and patients are treated under strict anonymity for fear that they and their families could be targeted in Syria if their time in Israel becomes known.
Seventy percent of the wounded treated by Israel are men of fighting age; the remaining 30% are women and children, Ashur said. Most are transported by ambulance to Nahariya’s Western Galilee Hospital (70%) or to Ziv Medical Center in Safed (20%). Others can only be treated in hospitals in the center of the country such as Sheba Medical Center in Tel Hashomer.
While the field hospital established over the border in 2013 has since been shut down, another field hospital will be opened in two weeks, in an old IDF base on the eastern side of the security fence, with two doctors each able to treat 30 patients a day.
The field hospital, which is being built by the IDF, will be run by an American organization and will have the ability to grow to house 16 to 18 doctors, thereby providing care to more than 500 patients per day. While it will not be able to care for any wounded fighters from the Syrian conflict, or those who may need surgery, it will provide care similar to that provided in any medical clinic.
“Israel is saving lives on a daily basis and we are working hard to improve the humanitarian situation on the ground. We will continue to do so and grow the project as needed,” the senior officer said.
“No one knows what the future of Syria will look like. This project has the potential to have a great impact on the future.” •