President Reuven Rivlin visits a Syrian civil war patient in a Nahariya hospital, April 09, 2017.
With the outbreak of the civil war in Syria ten years ago, Israel began admitting wounded Syrian nationals for humanitarian medical treatment. The IDF medical corps and hospitals in northern Israel have since provided medical treatment to thousands of wounded Syrians. The logistics of evacuating the injured from the battlefield and transferring them to Israeli territory was often prolonged because Israel and Syria are enemies.
Most of the wounded were brought to the Galilee Medical Center (GMC) in northern Israel. Some were admitted within 24 hours of their injury. For others, it took as long as 14 to 28 days to reach Israel from the combat zone.