by Adi Hashmonai, Reuters and Israel Hayom Staff
Syrian children, some suffering from chronic health problems, are treated in Israeli hospital
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A Syrian woman
crossing into Israel with her children, Wednesday
Screenshot: Reuters
Keeping
a doctor's appointment in Israel, Syrian children and their mothers
stepped across a tense Golan Heights border in the dead of night on
Wednesday, under the watchful gaze of Israeli soldiers.
The patients, Israeli medical officials
said, were not the walking wounded of the seven-year-old Syrian civil
war but children with chronic health problems coming across the
frontier for a day's treatment in a hospital in northern Israel.
Israel has treated some 4,500 war casualties from Syria since a humanitarian aid program dubbed Operation Good Neighbor was launched five years ago.
The group of more than 40 mothers and
children that crossed over in the pre-dawn hours of Wednesday were
among the 3,000 Syrians who Israel says have received separate
treatment as part of a subsequent operation called "Doctor's
Appointment."
Supervised by Israeli soldiers with
night-vision equipment, one woman – carrying one child and holding the
hand of another – stepped through a gate built into Israel's security
fence in the Golan Heights.
After a brief security check, she joined
others at the roadside to wait for a bus that would take them to Ziv
Medical Center in the northern city of Safed, where a medical clown
entertained the children waiting for treatment.
"They are treated in hospital and go back
the same day," Maj. Sergei Kutikov, an Israeli military health
officer, said. "Sometimes they return twice or three times for further
treatment or surgery," he added.
Israel has largely stayed out of the Syrian
civil war but it has carried out scores of airstrikes on Iranian or
Hezbollah weapon convoys in Syria. Only hours after the latest batch of
patients came across the border, sirens sounded across the Israeli
communities in the Golan Heights as an Israeli missile intercepted a
drone incursion from Syria.
For Israel, the medical aid program can
help win hearts and minds in border areas where the number of refugees
has increased in recent weeks, as Syrian President Bashar Assad's
forces advance in an offensive to recover southwest Syria.
Dr. Michael Harari, a pediatrician at Ziv
hospital, said medical infrastructure in southwest Syria has largely
broken down, and groups of Syrian children are brought to the facility
every two to three weeks.
"We were afraid in the beginning to come
[because we regarded Israelis] as Zionists and enemies," said one
woman, who brought her son for treatment. "Now we know it's the
opposite."
Also on Wednesday, the IDF revealed that it
has teamed with the communities in the Golan Heights to transfer
donations and humanitarian aid to the Syrian refugees across the
border.
Last week, the Golan Regional Council
opened a collection center and according to council officials, it was
immediately flooded with hundreds of care packages, toys, clothes and
food for the refugees, for the IDF to collect and deliver to the
Syrian side of the border.
Adi Hashmonai, Reuters and Israel Hayom Staff
Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/2018/07/12/sick-wounded-syrians-secretly-cross-border-for-treatment-%e2%80%8ein-israel/
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