The Israeli army has completed the installation of a field hospital set up on the Israeli-Syrian border to treat injured Syrians. The humanitarian gesture comes at the risk of encouraging further efforts by Syrians to cross into Israel:

Ben-Dror Yemini writes that, now that the word is out that Israel is providing humanitarian aid, “it’s expected that the numbers will grow… If Israel sends a field hospital to Haiti, on the other side of the globe, there’s no reason that it should turn its back on the injured situated a walking distance away. It’s a humanitarian matter,” he says. “And as always, all of Israel’s humanitarian aid will be received with the Pavlovian response: fig leaf.”

The IDF has treated about a dozen Syrians over the past week, including a man suffering from a gunshot wound to his head who later succumbed to his injuries. The IDF also treated four Syrians injured last week during a mortar attack. Iranian news media, meanwhile, is treating the hospital’s existence as definitive proof that Israel is driving the Syrian conflict:

The Israeli military has set up a “military field hospital” in the occupied Golan Heights to treat wounded foreign-backed militants fighting against the government in neighboring Syria… Reports further indicate that 11 anti-Damascus militants, who were wounded during the ongoing violence in Syria, have been sent to hospitals in northern Israel for treatment last month. Eight of them returned to Syria, while another three remained in Israel for further treatment…

The report clearly proves Israel’s support for the militants fighting against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government.

The border zone between Israel and Syria has grown increasingly unstable. There is a steady stream of news – including from recent days – to the effect that Syrian army forces are abandoning their posts in the area. The U.N. peacekeeping force along the border is at risk of total collapse.

The power vacuum at and around the border has been partially filled by opposition forces increasingly dominated by hard-line Islamist elements. Members of those groups have threatened to invade Israel.

[Photo: Israel Defense Forces / Wiki Commons]