The Health Ministry announces that it sent medical supplies overnight to a hospital in the Druze-majority Sweida province of southern Syria, where over a week of sectarian violence has left hundreds dead.
Citing Israel’s “commitment to our Druze brethren,” the Health Ministry says the shipment was delivered to the hospital by the IDF and other security officials.
Syrian media reported last night that four Israeli Air Force helicopters dropped the aid off at the main hospital in Sweida’s provincial capital, of the same name.
The ministry says the overnight delivery follows “reports of severe damage to the hospital.” The nature of the damage is unclear.
The supplies include life-saving medicine and equipment to treat trauma, according to the Health Ministry, which says it is also planning future shipments.
Plans to deliver the supplies were first announced on Saturday. The ministry says its director general, Moshe Bar Siman-Tov, held a meeting on the matter Saturday with the mayor of Majdal Shams, Dolan Abu Saleh, as well as local doctors and Salman Zarka, the head of the Ziv Medical Center in Safed.
“In light of Israel’s commitment to our Druze brethren, as has been expressed over the past week amid the events in southern Syria, the Health Ministry has taken upon itself to transfer medical supplies and medicine to better assist the wounded and sick in the area,” Bar Siman-Tov says in a statement released by the Health Ministry.
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