By the end of 2013 Israeli hospitals had treated at least 200 Syrians wounded in that country’s war, garnering international attention – including from analysts at U.S. think tanks – highlighting Israel’s nearly singular role in directly alleviating Syrian suffering:

Mira Eli, the nurse in charge of the maternity delivery ward at Sieff, described the care provided to the pregnant Syrian woman: “We gave her a hug, a shower and food. We gave her postnatal advice. She’s a very young woman who came without her husband or anyone else accompanying her, and it was her first delivery. Our job is to ensure that every new mother remembers her delivery as an unforgettable positive experience, whatever her ethnic, national or religious background.” The young Syrian mother said, “I don’t feel like I am in an enemy country. The staff are all helping me and worrying about me. My baby, too, is getting wonderful, devoted care.”

Stories have been circulating of pregnant women and badly wounded teenagers safely making their way to Israeli hospitals, where they receive cutting-edge medical treatments.

By September of last year, it was already clear that Israel’s treatment of wounded Syrians was broadly known inside Syria. By November, the BBC was describing an increasingly formalized process for getting injured civilians to Israeli doctors, describing how “the informal system of patient transfer has become so well-established that some patients have even arrived with letters of referral written by doctors in Syria for their Israeli counterparts.” And The New York Times last week reported on the existence of a tacit understanding between the Israelis and rebel elements along the Golan Heights:

For some, the journey begins with help from the Free Syrian Army, a Western-aligned loose coalition of rebels who are fighting Mr. Assad’s government, and from international coordinating bodies in the area. Spirited across the frontier into the Israeli-held Golan Heights, the patients and their relatives pass into the hands of the Israeli military.

Washington Institute fellow Ehud Yaari recently suggested that the transfers of patients into Israel and of humanitarian goods into Syria – the latter being another Israeli campaign that was recently made public – implies extensive and still-unrevealed ties between Jerusalem and moderate rebel groups:

One should assume that the same understandings which allowed over 600 wounded Syrians to be evacuated for treatment in Israeli hospitals — including a special military field hospital on the Golan — are facilitating other forms of assistance as well. A significant operation of this type indicates that a system of communications and frequent contacts have been established with the local rebel militias, since the evacuation of the injured and their return to Syria seem to function flawlessly.

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