Israeli doctors rally to save 5-year-old Syrian girl

Almost from the start of the bloody conflict raging in Syria, Israel has agreed to treat in its hospitals any wounded Syrians who reached its border seeking help.

But one five-year-old girl from the war-torn land has led doctors, as well as Israel’s security services, to take unprecedented steps to try to save her life.

The girl arrived at Rambam Medical Center in Haifa in recent weeks with very serious wounds that she received after finding herself caught in a firefight between rival militias, according to an exclusive report Wednesday night on Channel 10.

Some two weeks after she arrived at the hospital, after her wounds had nearly healed, Rambam doctors discovered the young girl had cancer.

They refused to release her, insisting that they could not let her cancer go untreated. The girl had grown used to the hospital, and had friends among the other children being treated there, they said.

Security officials agreed.

And so a search began for a bone marrow donor, a search that led to a relative living in a Middle Eastern country designated an “enemy state” under Israeli law, a designation that prevented the relative from entering Israel.

It was at this point that Israel’s security services stepped in, mounting a secret operation in the enemy country that helped smuggle the relative out of that country and into Israel.

The relative arrived in Israel on Monday, Channel 10 reported. Both child and donor are now quarantined at the hospital, where the girl is expected to undergo a first round of treatment this month.

Nearly every detail about the girl’s identity and the operation to locate and retrieve her relative are classified.