Israeli aid gives an unexpected 'glimmer of hope' for Syrians
21 July 2017 5:47 PM GMT
Quietly, over the last year, hundreds of sick Syrian children and their chaperones have been whisked across enemy lines at dawn for treatment at clinics in Israel, slipping back home after dark.
Truckloads of supplies have passed into Syrian villages through a gate in the sturdy security fence that Israel has constructed since Syriaerupted into civil war, including stacks of flour, generators, half a million liters of fuel, construction materials, tons of shoes, baby formula, antibiotics and even a few vehicles and mules.
This week, the Israeli military revealed the scope of the humanitarian aid project, which it calls Operation Good Neighbor and which began in June 2016 along the Israeli-Syrian boundary on the Golan Heights.
The aid project depends on an extraordinary level of cooperation between old foes on both sides of the decades-old armistice lines separating the Syrians and Israelis.
Military officials say they coordinate directly with Syrian doctors and village leaders to gauge needs.
The humanitarian effort is likely to burnish the reputation of the Israeli military, which is usually viewed as an occupying force and formidable war machine.
It also yields immediate security benefits by giving Syrian border villages — dominated by rebel forces fighting the government of President Bashar al-Assad — an interest in keeping out more radical anti-Israeli militias, and represents what officials say is a longer-term investment in stabilizing the area. AGENCIES
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