Israel Matzav

Israel setting up field hospital on Syrian border

The IDF is going to set up a field hospital on the Syrian border in order to treat refugees from Syria's civil war along the border rather than transporting them to hospitals in Israel.

The decision to set up the hospital was taken two days after Israeli troops — in an unprecedented move in the two-year Syrian civil war — evacuated seven wounded Syrian refugees to an Israeli hospital after they had approached the border and appealed for help.

According to the plan, reported by Channel 10 on Monday night, the makeshift hospital will be set up close to the border in the central Golan Heights or near the Quneitra border crossing with Syria. The logic behind the move, the report said, was for Israel to be prepared to meet further possible medical pleas from additional Syrian refugees without having to take them for treatment inside Israeli territory.

The IDF reportedly expects that after Saturday’s incident, Syrian refugees will flock to Israel for sanctuary from the bloody civil war that has wracked Syria for two years and claimed tens of thousands of lives.

The IDF Spokesperson’s Office said it could not confirm the authenticity of the report. There were no details of when the hospital would be established, its size, or its precise intended location.

Speaking at the weekly Cabinet meeting on Sunday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made clear Israel would not open its borders to Syrian refugees as a matter of course.

“We saw fighting yesterday on our borders,” Netanyahu said. “We will continue to protect our borders and prevent people crossing or entering into Israel, except for individual, specific cases, each of which will be considered on its own merit.”

The key to this issue is the last part of the post:

The United Nations’ 1951 Refugee Convention requires that “anyone who crosses an international border and believes his life to be in danger in his country of origin must be given access to an asylum process,” Sharon Harel, assistant protection officer at the Israel office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, told The Times of Israel Sunday.

The convention, and Israeli law, forbid the government from forcibly repatriating asylum-seekers, Harel said. That would apply even to citizens of an enemy state like Syria.

We can all envision our country being overrun by Syrian refugees, some legitimate and many not. The government is at least trying to take steps to ensure that doesn't happen. 

What could go wrong?

Labels: Bashar al-Assad, Free Syrian Army, Golan Heights, Palestinian refugees, Syrian refugees, Syrian uprising

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 1:28 PM