Israel Opens Border With Syria to Deliver Humanitarian Aid

The Israeli government has authorized the delivery of humanitarian aid into war-torn Syria through the nations’ shared border, an American-Israeli activist who spearheaded the initiative told The Jerusalem Post.

Jerusalem agreed to transfer medical, educational and food aid to its northern neighbor, Moti Kahan said. While Israeli activists have sought to help Syrians in the past, delivering aid across the border has been complicated by the fact that many towns and cities on the Syrian side of the Golan Heights are controlled by the Islamic State or the al-Nusra Front, an affiliate of al-Qaeda. The aid shipments will be handled by the Israeli Defense Forces [IDF] to ensure that they do not wind up in the hands of terrorist groups. “The IDF knows whom to trust,” Kahan said.

Ayoub Kara, Israel’s deputy minister for regional cooperation, gave the operation his full support, saying that Syrian “civilians are in a difficult situation and we want to help them and not wait for others.” Kara, a Druze Arab, is a member of the Knesset for Likud.

While this is the first time that the Israeli government has agreed to facilitate aid transfers into Syria, Israeli relief efforts have been ongoing for years. More than 2,000 Syrians have been treated in Israeli hospitals since 2013, even though the two countries have been in a state of war since Israel’s founding.