Israel evacuates hundreds of Syrian ‘White Helmets’ in humanitarian effort

Some 800 Syrians affiliated with the White Helmets and their families are being evacuated from Quneitra through Israel to Jordan, according to the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit. Syrian Civil Defense, the official name of the White Helmets, is a volunteer organization that has worked in rebel areas of Syria providing medical support during the Syrian conflict.

According to a Bild report published Saturday night by Paul Ronzheimer, Giorgos Moutafis and Julian Ropcke, around 800 Syrians were transported across the Syrian-Israel border. “From there on to Jordan,” the article states. “They are members and families of the famous White Helmets.” Those evacuated will continue on to the UK, Canada and Germany, according to Bild.

The evacuation was kept secret and began at 9:30 p.m. Minibuses took the families through the border in the “dark of night.”

According to Ronzheimer, the evacuation was “still ongoing” after midnight and into the early hours of Sunday. By 5 a.m. the buses had reached the Jordanian border according to Ronzheimer who posted photos at the time. He tweeted that the UN was involved, although the full details remained largely unknown until the morning.

The operation was the result of a unique international effort to secure the safety of the White Helmets and their families. The AP reported on Thursday that US officials had been “finalizing plans to evacuate several hundred Syrian Civil Defense workers, also known as the White Helmets, and their families from the province through neighboring countries.”  

Rebels surrender as the Syrian army advances, June 30, 2018 (Reuters)

Syrian source familiar with the White Helmet operations in southern Syria said he was surprised to learn of the sudden evacuation because Jordan had not allowed the White Helmet volunteers to evacuate over the last few weeks.

However Amman confirmed Saturday that it would allow the 800 Syrians transit via the Kingdom. In a statement posted online, the government said that “Syrians who were working in the civil defense fled the areas controlled by the Syrian opposition after the attack by the Syrian army.”

The Syrians will stay in a closed area while in Jordan for no more than three months and their passage onward has been guaranteed by three western countries. Jordan emphasized that it has hosted 1.3 million refugees from Syria and that the latest deal was organized by the United Nations.

Neither the AP report nor the Jordanian government statement mention Israel. This points to the fact that Israel’s role was considered controversial and that the method of the evacuation had to be kept under wraps until it was complete.

“Following the request of the United States and other European countries, and in according with the directives of the political leadership, the IDF completed a humanitarian effort to rescue members of a Syrian civilian organizations and their families from the fighting zone in southern Syria,” the IDF said Sunday morning. The transfer was carried out as a humanitarian gesture and the Syrians were transported to a neighboring country, the statement said. “Israel does not intervene in internal fighting in Syria.”

Canada played a role in supporting the evacuation. Calling them “courageous volunteers and first responders who risk their lives to help their fellow Syrians,” the Press Secretary of the Office of the Minister of Foreign Affairs said that Canada was working in close partnership with the UK and Germany to ensure the safety of the civil defense workers and their families.

“Canada has been unequivocal about its support for the White Helmets. At a meeting of Foreign Ministers on the occasion of the NATO leaders’ summit in Brussels a week ago, I called for global leadership to support and help these heroes,” foreign affairs minister Chrystia Freeland said. Canada agreed to take 50 of the White Helmets, which could mean up to 250 people according to Canada’s CBC.

The transfer of the White Helmets was kept secret until the last moment, and raises many questions. Elizabeth Tsurkov, a Research Fellow at the Israeli Forum for Regional Thinking and an expert on the conflict in southern Syria, tweeted that the number of people being reported rescued is incorrect. She played down reports that Israel “rescued” the White Helmets.

“If Western countries did not step up and agree to receive these people as refugees, they would still be trapped inside Syria, facing detention in Assad regime torture dungeons or bombings by the Assad regime and Russia,” she said.

Although Israel has carried out Operation Good Neighbor over the last several years, treating 5,000 Syrians in hospital and providing humanitarian aid, Jerusalem did not allow Syrians fleeing the fighting to enter Israel. When 200 Syrians approached the border fence on July 17 they were told to go back. The thousands of Syrians who gathered near the border in the last month were fleeing fighting in southern Syria.

The Syrian regime launched a large offensive in June that has retaken the rebel-held areas in Dara’a and Quneitra bordering Jordan and the Golan. The Syrian rebels agreed to a reconciliation with the regime Friday and their areas were mostly surrendered by Saturday night, leaving only a sliver of territory near the border and within the 1974 ceasefire lines.

Many of the tens of thousands of Syrians who had fled the fighting began to return home or to take buses to the northern Idlib province Friday where some of the rebels agreed to go. However this apparently left the White Helmet volunteers in a limbo and in fear for persecution. The Assad regime has allowed locals to remain in control of their areas under the reconciliation, but those accused of working for western governments or civil defense felt threatened. The Assad regime has accused the White Helmets of being linked to terrorists and in June slammed the US and UK for funding the group.

Julian Reichelt of Bild praised Israel for opening its border to the “persecuted and hunted Syrians.”