UNDER COVER OF NIGHT, SYRIAN WOUNDED SEEK HELP FROM ENEMY ISRAEL:
Posted onIt happens nearly every night. After dark, the Syrian wounded come to known locations on the Israel-Syria front in the Golan Heights, driven by desperation to seek help from an enemy army. Israeli soldiers on lookout or patrol spot them waiting by the fence and whisk them away to a rear position where army medics soon arrive, according to army officials operating in the area that was seized by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war. Israel refuses to accept refugees fleeing the nearly six-year conflict in Syria, a country with which it remains technically at war. But it has allowed in more than 2,600 Syrians for medical care. On one bitterly cold January night, gunfire and explosions could be heard in the near distance as Israeli medics dressed the injuries of two Syrian men, one suffering a head wound. "We're doing everything we can to save their lives, to stabilize them and evacuate them to hospital," said Captain Aviad Camisa, deputy chief medical officer of the Golan brigade.
"Some of the stories stir your emotions. When children come, as a father, it touches me personally," Camisa said. Millions have fled and hundreds of thousands have been killed in Syria's conflict, which shows only fitful signs of being resolved. The Israeli army helps facilitate access to nearby hospitals. One man, his legs pierced by shrapnel, survived a bomb attack in his village in which 23 people were killed. "In the past we used to know Israel as our enemy. That's what the regime used to tell us," he said. "When we came to Israel we changed our minds, there is no enmity between us. In the end we discovered that our regime is the enemy of us all," he said, referring to Syrian president Bashar al-Asad. (Reuters)