Video - Syrian fighters: “Israel is a friend, not an enemy. The Israelis showed us their humanity.”

Video - Israel Treats Wounded al-Qaeda Militants and Syrian Christians Immigrate to Europe
Read the full story here.
This two-part report from Lebanese al-Mayadeen TV discusses in its first part how 106 wounded militants from Jabhat al-Nusra (al-Qaeda in Syria) are currently being treated at Nahariya Hospital close to Acre in northern Israel. The wounded militants are first moved to a specific location close to the Syrian-Israeli border in the Golan, and they get then transported to the hospital via ambulances that belong to the Israeli Army while being heavily guarded.

The second part of the report discusses how Syrian Christians are increasingly being targeted by hardline Jihadist militants in a war that has become more and more sectarian in nature. This is forcing many Christians to immigrate to Europe, where many European countries are facilitating their immigration.

Related: FSA rebels in Syria: “Israel is a friend, not an enemy. The Israelis showed us their humanity.”

The Israelis have kept a fairly low profile in regard to the civil war in Syria. They have rebutted the notion that their security would be compromised in any outcome of the conflict, but otherwise have tried to keep their mouths shut. That doesn’t mean that Israel has had no contact with the conflict, though. McClatchy reported earlier today that some of the moderate rebels have turned to Israeli medical care in a pinch — and that may be more influential in the end:

Syria and Israel are formally at war, and the idea of Syrians being treated in an Israeli hospital once would have been unthinkable. But the brutality of the Syrian civil war has driven some 200 wounded Syrians in the past six months to seek help at the Israeli frontier on the Golan Heights, according to the Israeli army.

Soldiers take them to a field hospital for treatment and triage, with more serious cases sent to hospitals in northern Israel. About 100 have been treated at the Nahariya hospital, with more arriving as news of the Israeli medical aid spreads by word of mouth.

For the man in the bed, who declined to be named for fear of retribution against his family back home, treatment in Israel has been a profoundly transforming experience.

“I thank the Israeli army,” he said. “Two and a half years of revolution have changed my opinion of Israel. Look what Bashar Assad” – Syria’s president – “has done to his people. Everything he says is a lie. He spreads hatred of Israel, but Israel is a friend, not an enemy. The Israelis showed us their humanity.”

It’s not an isolated case, either:

In one hospital room, a 22-year-old fighter from the Free Syrian Army was recovering from a gunshot wound in the shoulder. The Syrian army, he asserted, had committed atrocities, destroying mosques and raping women. “The Free Syrian Army will never fight Israel,” he said. “Assad’s army is the enemy, not the Israeli military.” …

A 17-year-old who entered the room in a wheelchair said that at the border he’d been frightened by Israeli soldiers pointing their rifles at him and ordering him to raise his hands. After an examination and transfer for medical treatment, he said he was surprised by the “compassion, sympathy and humanity” shown him at the hospital.

This won’t change the face of the Middle East on its own … but it’s a start, and a good reminder of the differences between the regimes’ propaganda and reality in the region.


The Righteous Among The Nations. "“Whosoever saves a single life, saves an entire universe" - (Mishnah, Sanhedrin 4:5)