A five-year-old Syrian girl’s life was saved twice in recent weeks by Israeli doctors: Once when they treated her wounds from a firefight between rival militias, and again when she was diagnosed with cancer.

Israel’s Channel 10 reported that the girl received her diagnosis at Haifa’s Rambam Hospital two weeks after she had had arrived and nearly fully recovered from her wounds. The doctors refused to release her until she was treated. Security officials approved of further treatments.

A search for a potential bone marrow donor turned up a relative in a country designated an “enemy state,” which according to Israeli law made it illegal for the relative to enter Israel. Israeli security services arranged an operation to smuggle the relative into Israel. Both he and the girl are being quarantined in advance of the procedure.

Over the past five years, more than 2,000 Syrians have been treated in Israeli hospitals. Israeli journalist Ron Ben-Yishai documented one of the risky missions the IDF undertook to rescue an injured Syrian fighter last May. Israel21c recently profiled Il4Syrians, an Israeli non-profit that runs secret, pinpointed humanitarian missions into Syria.

Israeli efforts to help Syrians have not gone unnoticed. Aboud Dandachi, a Syrian refugee, has set up a website, Thank You Am Israel, to say “Thank you to the people of Israel and the Jewish people the world over, for showing kindness and charity to Syrians, whether it is through your IDF medical teams, your aid workers in Greece and the Balkans, or your congregations in North America raising money to aid and sponsor Syrian refugees.”

[Photo: CNN / YouTube ]