Israeli Interior Minister Aryeh Deri has approved a plan to allow the absorption of orphaned children who have survived the fighting in war-torn Syria and are in desperate need of basic necessities and secure homes.

In spite of the fact that Syria and Israel do not entertain diplomatic relations, Deri authorized the Population and Immigration Authority to begin contacts with relevant agencies, thus allowing the absorption of the children and facilitate their rehabilitation. In order to make the transition as smooth as possible for the children they will be integrated into Arab-Israeli families.

"The situation in Syria is very harsh. Civilians have been slaughtered for years only a few dozen kilometers from Israel. I have decided to order professionals in my ministry to work toward absorbing children on humanitarian grounds in order to render assistance and rescue 100 of them from the horrors and afford them good and normal lives in Israel," said Deri.

Israel undertakes various efforts to offer humanitarian assistance to Syrians - coordinated between the government, the military and various humanitarian groups.

Since February 2013, over 2,500 children, women and men who managed to reach the border with Israel were brought to medical facilities and received free care. "We're doing everything we can to save their lives, to stabilize them and evacuate them to hospital," Captain Aviad Camisa, deputy chief medical officer of the IDF Golan brigade told Reuters.

A wounded Syrian that has been treated in Ziv Medical Center in Northern Israel said: "In the past we used to know Israel as our enemy. That's what the regime used to tell us. When we came to Israel we changed our minds, there is no enmity between us.” Some Syrians also come back afterwards for follow-up treatment.

Just recently a Syrian woman gave birth to a healthy girl in Ziv Medical Center. With hospitals and clinics around her village destroyed, the 29-year-old woman made the dangerous trek to the Israeli border from where she was picked up by the IDF and brought to the hospital. In gratitude to Israel she named her daughter Sarah: "I'll never forget what you did here.”

Syrians are received and accompanied by Arab speaking staff in the medical facilities. When children arrive by themselves further efforts are being made to accommodate them in the best way possible.  Dr. Michael Harari, a pediatrician at Ziv Medical Center, told ISRAEL21c, “When a child arrives without parents, we try to bunk them in a room with another Syrian patient who came with a grandmother or mother so that they can act as an adoptive guardian and help the orphan feel less alone in the world.”

With Deri’s new plan the long-term perspective for these children has taken a new direction. They will be able to go back to school, grow up in a safe place – find back some normality at a safe distance from this conflict. Syrian refugee Aboud Dandachi created the website Thank You Am Israel dedicated to the various efforts undertaken by Israel to help Syrians. Dandachi told us, “The website is a way of saying thank you to all the Israeli and Jewish aid volunteers who take great risks to help my people, despite having many reasons not to get involved.”

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