'If Isil knew I came to Israel they would behead me': Syrian parents risk everything to get Israeli treatment for their children

It is 5.22am and a small squad of Israeli soldiers is waiting at the Golan Heights fence that looks into Syria. Two of the soldiers point rifles through the fence links while a third, an Arabic-speaking Bedouin scout, waves a torch slowly back and forth. 

Minutes tick by and the troops shift under the weight of their weapons and armour. The scout keeps flashing his torch into the Syrian darkness until a skinny young man emerges holding a cigarette and a torch of his own. 

Behind him is a young boy with thick glasses clutching at his mother’s hand, and behind them is another woman holding two little girls with baubles in their hair. More and more women and children step out of the night until there are around 50 people huddled at the Israeli military post. 

The group is among nearly 5,000 Syrians who have made the short but perilous journey from rebel-controlled areas of Syria to Israel to receive medical treatment as part of an Israeli military operation known as “Good Neighbour”. 

Both the Syrian regime and radical Islamist groups like the Islamic State (Isil) consider Israel one of their ultimate enemies, and the Syrian parents are taking a serious risk of being by crossing over into the Jewish state. The label “Israeli collaborator” could be a death sentence.

“If Daesh knew I came to Israel they would behead me,” said Rouba, who had brought her seven-year-old daughter to get treated for damaged nerves in her arm. (The names of all Syrians in this story have been changed for their safety).

Syrian mothers and their children cross from Syria into the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights for medical treatment
Syrian mothers and their children cross from Syria into the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights for medical treatment Credit: Quique Kierszenbaum / Telegraph

 

Rouba’s village in southern Syria is under Isil control and she recently fled with her four children and her husband, leaving behind all their belongings. She said she still feared that the jihadists could get to her but was prepared to take the risks to get treatment for her daughter. “That’s what matters to me now,” she said. 

Other Syrian women in the bright waiting room at Ziv hospital marveled that they were in Israel, a country they had always been told was an enemy of the Syrian people. “I never thought I would come here,” said one woman, whose daughter was in danger of losing her sight in one eye to an infection. “I was surprised that Israel wanted to help the Syrians. I never expected this in my life.” 

As she spoke, the 25 Syrian children, having shrugged off their initial shyness, were gathered around a table colouring under the supervision of two Arab-Israeli nurses. One little girl exchanged high fives with a young Israeli soldier. On the wall hung a drawing by another Syrian child, showing tanks, guns and the Syrian flag.    

Drawings by Syrian children decorate the walls at Ziv hospital
Drawings by Syrian children decorate the walls at Ziv hospital Credit: Quique Kierszenbaum / Telegraph

The border crossings are arranged between a network of doctors in rebel-controlled areas of southern Syria and Israeli military officers. They speak by phone across the border and agree on which treatments are needed and when to send the patients. The crossings are always done at night for the safety of both the Syrians and the Israeli troops. 

One Syrian doctor accompanied the children over the border, holding a neatly handwritten list of their names and ailments. He had made the journey many times and has come to savour his few peaceful hours in the Israeli city of Safed, just two hours drive from the fighting in southern Syria. That night he would return back to it again.  

“Some ignorant people say we’re collaborators, they consider us traitors. These journeys are difficult for us and we’re afraid,” he said. “But it’s all politics, the Syrian people want to live in peace with Israel.”   

Israel first began ad hoc treatments for Syrians four years ago, when wounded people began showing up at the border between rebel-held Syrian areas and the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights. Word soon spread among the Syrian population that the Israelis could be trusted and the numbers of people ballooned. 

“The first three or so years, many people who came here came with fear and apprehension of the unknown,” said Dr Michael Harari, a paediatrician at Ziv hospital. “People talked openly about seeing us as devils, whereas now the expectation is uniformly that they will be well treated.” 

The Syrian children are treated by Dr Michael Harari and others at Ziv hospital
The Syrian children are treated by Dr Michael Harari and others at Ziv hospital Credit: Quique Kierszenbaum

The treatment programme was recently formalised under the title of Operation Good Neighbour, with Israeli officers and troops assigned full time to helping the Syrians. The mission is officially a humanitarian one, designed to give Syrians the care they cannot get in their own war-torn country. 

But there is also a potential strategic benefit for Israel as it builds up reservoirs of goodwill in a country that it has technically been at war with since 1948. Israel also has an interest in supporting rebel populations to try to keep the Assad regime and its Hizbollah allies from retaking the areas around the Israeli border. Israel has reportedly supplied money, equipment and light weapons to some of the Syrian rebels.     

“I’m not fooling myself,” said Major Dr Sergey Kodikov, the chief medical officer of Good Neighbour. “I don’t expect everyone to love Israel but if I’m able to show even some people that the reality is different from what they’ve been told that is enough for me.” 

Syrian patients are escorted to civilian hospitals by Israeli forces
Syrian patients are escorted to civilian hospitals by Israeli forces Credit: Quique Kierszenbaum / Telegraph

Major Kodikov and his team are now trying to build up the Syrians’ capacity on the other side of the border, sending them medicine and supplies so they can run their own clinics. They also try to track the children’s recoveries remotely and call them back to Israel for more treatment if needed.   

Some of the more serious cases among the 25 children stay at Ziv hospital for operations or longer care but others return to Syria that night. The knowledge that the children are heading back to a war zone weighs on the medical staff.   

“You develop good relationships with people, especially the children,” said Fares Issa, a bearlike social worker who speaks to the Syrians in Arabic and has the children in fits of giggles as he lifts them high above his head. “Professionally, I have to cut this relationship when they go back home. But I worry about them and wonder what’s happening to them.” 

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