Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Tuesday that he instructed his government to find ways to extend medical assistance to Syrians injured in the latest round of fighting, especially those from the embattled city of Aleppo.
“We see the tragedy of terrible suffering of civilians and I’ve asked the Foreign Ministry to seek ways to expand our medical assistance to the civilian casualities of the Syrian tragedy, specifically in Aleppo where we’re prepared to take in wounded women and children, and also men if they’re not combatants,” Netanyahu told foreign journalists during a meeting in Jerusalem.
“We’d like to do that: Bring them to Israel, take care of them in our hospitals as we’ve done with thousands of Syrian civilians. We’re looking into ways of doing this; it’s being explored as we speak.”
“Do I see a resolution of the Syrian situation? No,” he said emphatically.
“It’s certainly not going to be one happy Syria, that’s for sure. Will it be a united Syria? I doubt it. You have enclaves there and I don’t think they’re about to disappear.”
The civilian population of Syria has suffered greatly from the war, but there is very little Israel could do to help them, the prime minister added. “I don’t know if we can resolve [the Syrian civil war]. But we can help mitigate some of the suffering, that’s the best that Israel can do.”
Israel and Syria have formally been at war for decades. Despite this, since the outbreak of war in Syria, Israel has treated more than 2,000 Syrians in its hospitals.
