(Photo: Our Soldiers Speak video/Screenshot)
By Ruthie Blum - March 8, 2016
Originally appeared here in Algemeiner.com
“At first, they were afraid to be treated by Israelis, whom they were taught their whole lives are their worst enemies,” the deputy surgeon general of the IDF Medical Corps told The Algemeiner this week. “But once they began to accept our medical help, they became overwhelmed with gratitude and their entire attitude towards us changed.”
Col. Dr. Tarif Bader was referring to the many wounded Syrians who have crossed the border into Israel from their war-torn country to receive top-tier care, both at the IDF field hospital set up along the border and at official medical centers in the north of the country.
Since 2013, Bader said, the IDF has been administering the same advanced care to Syrians injured in the fighting between President Assad’s forces (backed by Russia and Iran) and rebel groups as it does to Israeli civilians and soldiers. This, emphasized Bader, is “without selection or prying into their ethnic background or side in the conflict” that has led to the death of an estimated 200,000 combatants and civilians over the past five years.
“But this is in keeping with what we teach our teams in the military medical academy: that their job is to treat all injured people, regardless of who they are, and the only thing they have to do in primary triage is to treat those with the most serious injuries first, including if they are terrorists,” he said. Read More