The Israeli army has revealed the scope of its humanitarian aid in Syria, a massive effort intended to help civilians in the war-torn country.
The aid operation, named Operation Good Neighbour, includes treating chronically ill children who have no access to hospitals, building clinics in Syria, and supplying hundreds of tonnes of food medicines and clothes to villages across the Israeli border.
On Wednesday, the IDF revealed that since June 2016, it has quietly been working on Operation Good Neighbour, a massive multi-faceted humanitarian relief operation to keep starvation away from the thousands of Syrians who live along the border and provide basic medical treatment to those who cannot access it in Syria because of the war.
In the past year since the operation was launched, the IDF has delivered 360 tonnes of food and 450,000 litres of fuel across the border in the past year, as well as thousands of parcels of baby formula, clothing and other goods.
It is also helping to build two clinics inside Syria. They will be staffed by local medics and NGO workers. Inside Israel, another clinic is also being constructed.
More than 4,000 Syrians have already received medical treatment in Israel, including 900 children.
Click here to read more in The Times, and watch a video explaining the IDF’s operation here.
Since the Syrian civil war erupted in 2011, hundreds of thousands have died and millions have been displaced. Israel – who remains officially at war with Syria – initially responded to the civil war by providing medical treatment to wounded Syrians, treating people in field hospitals on the border and in public hospitals, mostly in northern Israel since 2013.
