Israeli hospital treats injured 13 year-old Syrian boy

A 13-year-old boy moderately injured during clashes in Syria was admitted for treatment Friday night at an emergency room in the northern Israeli city of Safed.

The young victim was taken to the Ziv Medical Center, likely after receiving some initial care in the field, according to Walla news. He was suffering from shrapnel wounds to his eyes and limbs.

The hospital has now treated 238 wounded Syrians since the beginning of the civil war nearly three years ago. More than 130,000 people are estimated to have been killed in the bloody conflict between President Bashar Assad’s government and opposition fighters.

Earlier Friday, three Syrians were admitted to the Western Galilee Hospital in Nahariya. One of them was said to have been seriously injured, and the other two moderately, reported Israel Radio.

Last Friday, Channel 2 News aired first look footage of a secret Israeli field hospital in the Golan Heights that has treated over 700 Syrians since the war began.

The hospital, staffed by soldiers in uniform, includes an emergency room, an intensive care unit, an operating theater, a mobile laboratory, a pharmacy and an x-ray facility. It treats Syrian patients who cross the border regardless of creed – or of where their loyalties lie.

The once-sporadic treatment of Syrian nationals in Israel has, by now, become routine, the report made clear: the wounded cross the border, and IDF medical teams deployed in the Golan Heights give them preliminary treatment. Those who are well enough are sent back across the border, and those who require further treatment are evacuated to the military hospital, a field commander at the facility told Channel 2. In this way, the hospital treats about a hundred Syrians per month.