IDF closes field clinic providing aid to injured Syrians
Mazor Ladach treated some 6,800 Syrians
By ANNA AHRONHEIMUpdated: AUGUST 5, 2018 01:43 IDF closes field clinic providing aid to injured Syrians Friday, August 3, 2018 (IDF Spokesperson's Unit)
A field clinic built by the IDF that provided care to injured Syrians has been closed, the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit announced on Friday.The Mazor Ladach (whose name mean “Bandaging Those In Need”) was opened in August 2017 at an unused military post in the southern Golan Heights on the Syrian border.This week the IDF began the process of dismantling and evacuating the clinic compound, which acted as a day clinic in cooperation with Operation Good Neighbor, which was launched in 2016, and the Frontier Alliance International, an American humanitarian organization.The clinic provided medical treatment for residents from the area near the Golan Heights, treating some 6,800 Syrians.The IDF’s 210th Division helped train staff at the facility, which had the ability for 16-18 doctors to care for more than 500 patients per day. While it was not able to care for anyone who needed surgery, it provided care similar to that in any medical clinic.The compound’s security was a top priority during the building process and the military built a secure bunker for emergency staff in case of stray mortar fire from fighting right across the border. Last October, a volunteer physician at the field clinic was lightly injured by a stray bullet from Syria and received treatment in the clinic.Since the outbreak of fighting, there have been serious shortages of medical infrastructure, doctors and medicines on the Syrian side. Faced with these shortages, the IDF acted to provide life-saving humanitarian assistance while not intervening in internal fighting in Syria.The Israeli military has been providing, among other things, more than 1,500 tons of food, 250 tons of clothes, nearly a million liters of fuel, 21 generators, 24,900 palettes of medical equipment and medicine, all while maintaining non-involvement in the civil war.The Syrian Army, backed by Russian air power, has been pummeling the southwestern provinces of Dara’a and Quneitra in an offensive aimed at recapturing the strategic areas bordering Jordan and the Golan Heights from rebels and Islamic State fighters.In recent weeks, the regime’s offensive has come closer to Israel’s Golan Heights, 1,200 square kilometers that Israel captured from Syria during the Six Day War in 1967 and unilaterally annexed in 1981.
“The IDF views the Syrian regime as responsible for everything that is happening in Syrian territory, monitors developments in the region and maintains readiness for a variety of scenarios,” read the IDF statement.