Israeli Aid Gives an Unexpected ‘Glimmer of Hope’ for Syrians
According to the Multifaith Alliance for Syrian Refugees, a New York-based network of organizations involved in the aid effort, Israel has also become an efficient,
if unlikely, staging area for Syrian aid groups operating abroad that, facilitated by the Israeli military, are now shipping goods into Syria through Israeli ports.
Syrians were brought up to fear Israelis as the devil who wants to kill us
and take our land." Speaking by telephone from Michigan, where he now lives, Mr. Martini said he had since visited Israel five times to push for, and coordinate, the effort with the Israeli military.
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.
" said Col. Barak Hiram, the commanding officer of Israel’s 474 Golan Brigade, adding
that it could lay the "first seeds" of some form of future agreement. that The aid creates a positive awareness of Israel on the Syrian side,
Israel says it is now getting aid to an area inhabited by about 200,000 Syrians, including around 400 displaced families
living in tent encampments along the international boundary, and is helping equip new clinics in the area.
Truckloads of supplies have passed into Syrian villages through a gate in the sturdy security fence
that Israel has constructed since Syria erupted 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.
But Israeli military officials insist that Operation Good Neighbor deals purely with humanitarian aid and
that they would not jeopardize the emerging climate of cooperation or taint it by mixing in weapons transfers and intelligence gathering.