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Jan 2015 back issue
by Nadav Neuhaus
At an Israeli hospital, mending bodies and lives eclipses the longtime war with Syria.
At 10 years old, Sami had only heard of Israel. The son of Syrian farmers, he didn’t know much about a war between
Israel and Syria more than four decades old, or land disputes with the country just across the border from his
hometown of Daraa.
But he knew a lot about war inside his own country, mostly because of extensive bombing by the Syrian army of towns
around his home, where there is little or no access to adequate medical care. The United Nations estimates Syria’s
ongoing civil war has claimed over 100,000 lives.
For a small but growing number of people wounded in the Syrian conflict, their only option for quality medical care is
one they and their families might never have imagined. Fighters and civilians injured in the area of the Syrian Golan
Heights are finding their way to a hospital in the Israeli city of Safed for treatment. Many receive prosthetic limbs and
months of physiotherapy before being smuggled back into Syria.
The trauma room in Ziv hospital is the great equalizer in the long-running conflict between Israel in Syria. Today, the
ongoing civil war in Syria is the paramount conflict and for some Syrians, putting their lives, or the lives of their family
members, in the hands of Israelis seems worth the risk. Israel’s decision to treat wounded Syrians that appear on the
Israeli side of the border remains controversial, but it has given names and faces to enemies on both sides of the
border. Trauma coordinator David “Dodi” Fuchs says he hopes it will plant the seeds of peace.
David “Dodi” Fuchs, the trauma coordinator at Ziv Hospital, lives across the border from Syria in the kibbutz Kfar
HaNasi. During the Six Days War in 1967 and the 1973 War, they could see smoke from bombings, but today, they see
smoke from Syria’s civil war. The increased trauma cases have made the hospital staff more skilled at handling combat
injuries, but more importantly, Fuchs says, Syrians who are treated in Israel go back with a different picture than the
one they grew up with of a faceless enemy.
The children wounded in Syria suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder and every sound of an explosion, even just a
balloon, can be distressing.
Johnny Khbeis, an Israeli Palestinian Christian who lives in Nazareth, is a former monk who trained as a medical clown.
Because he speaks Arabic, he is uniquely qualified to work with the Syrian children being treated at Israel’s Ziv hospital.
He stays in touch with many families after they return to Syria.
Khbeis says it's easier for the kids than it is for their parents, who come to Israel with deeply ingrained biases against
the country and its people. But he says the time in Israel can change their opinions.
Johnny Khbeis, an Israeli Arab medical clown, stops in to see Aya, an eight-year-old Syrian girl who nearly lost her leg
from a bomb attack on her village in Syria. Israeli doctors were able to save her leg. After two months she was able to
return to Syria, but later returned to Israel for further treatment.
Johnny Khbeis gets to know each of the children being treated in the hospital and keeps in touch with them and their
families once they are back in Syria.
An Israeli nurse holds the hand of Sammy, a 10-year-old Syrian boy, at Ziv Hospital in the northern Israeli town of
Safed. Sammy lost both his legs during an attack in his village in Syria.
Although Israel and Syria remain enemy countries, a small but steady stream of wounded have found their way across
the border, where children like Sammy and Modish, who lost their legs during ongoing violence in the civil war, are
treated and given prosthetic limbs before being smuggled back into Syria. After he lost his legs, Sammy asked to be
taken to Israel, because all he knew was that “they fix legs.”
Israeli doctors at Ziv Hospital change the bandages on a wounded three-year-old Syrian boy. The boy arrived at the
hospital without his parents or any adult. The faces of Syrians in this story have been obscured because of the threat
from Syrian government forces against anyone who has been to Israel.
Israeli Arab volunteers help the Syrian children feel less isolated and communicate with hospital staff. The volunteers
speak Arabic and are eager to help, saying it’s the least they can do to help survivors in a population ravaged by war
just across the border. More than 700 people wounded in Syria have been treated in Israeli hospitals since the
beginning of 2013.
Avidan Landau, a nurse in the children’s ward at Ziv Hospital who lives in the Golan Heights, treats Sammy, a double
amputee, in a special room set up for wounded Syrian children. A teacher who speaks Arabic also works with the
children. For many of them, it is the first time they have used, or even seen a computer.
A team of Israeli doctors at Ziv hospital work to save the leg of a person wounded in the ongoing conflict in neighboring
Syria. For Israelis, the treatment of Syrians is controversial, given that the two countries are still only operating under a
ceasefire agreement.
Alexander Lerner (left), head of the orthopedic department at Ziv Hospital, in surgery trying to save the leg of a
wounded Syrian. The hospital makes every effort to save limbs because of the difficulty for amputees back in Syria,
where in some areas, even basic services are difficult to come by due to destruction caused by the civil war.
For the staff at Ziv Hospital, which started receiving wounded Syrians in January 2013, the situation raises difficult
issues. As medical professionals, they care for the wounded, no matter who they are or where they come from. But
given the tensions between Israel and Syria, it’s not difficult to imagine that they could be saving the lives of fighters
who may one day turn around and fight against Israel.
Israeli doctors stitch the stomach wounds of a Syrian man wounded in the civil conflict in neighboring Syria. The
hospital has been treating a trickle of badly wounded Syrians, many who have lost limbs, and getting them well enough
to return to Syria, where they would face dangerous repercussions in the regime knew they and been to Israel.
