Escaping Death, Quietly Settling in to Havens

"The White Helmets are 3,922 volunteer search and rescue workers from local communities who risk their lives to save others and bring hope."

"We rush to the scene of attacks to save the greatest number of lives in the shortest possible time and to minimize further injury to people and damage to property."
"We are a neutral and impartial organization. We do not pledge allegiance to any political party or group. We serve all the people of Syria – we are from the people and we are for the people."
Syrian Civil Defence  [White Helmets]

In this Wednesday, Sept. 21, 2016, file photo, provided by the Syrian Civil Defense White Helmets, rescue workers work the site of airstrikes in the al-Sakhour neighborhood of the rebel-held part of eastern Aleppo, Syria. (Syrian Civil Defense White Helmets via The Associated Press)

Since their formation in 2013 as a non-political rescue group the White Helmets estimate they have been able to rescue up to 100,000 Syrian men, women and children in dire straits, victims of Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad's all-out war against his civilian Sunni Syrian population. To ordinary Syrians they are heroes, risking their own lives to secure those of strangers. Their exploits have become common knowledge. They too have been targeted by the Syrian regime for extermination, just as hospitals and clinics, breadlines and schools have been deliberate targets in the Sunni-majority areas of Syria.

Still grab from video: President Benjamin Netanyahu announcing the rescue by the Israel Defence Forces of a group of 400 White Helmet Families, bused from the Golan Heights into Jordan

Hundreds of White Helmets and their families were trapped by the advancing forces of the Syrian military. Their fate was obvious, as the Syrian military advanced they would target the White Helmets for death. The group recognized as  heroic by the West and by those whose lives they saved are considered to be 'terrorists' by President Bashar al-Assad whose agenda has been their extermination. And as far as Assad's ally Vladimir Putin is concerned, if the Syrian president considers them enemies and terrorists it's good enough assurance that's what they represent for the Kremlin to order air strikes on their positions.

An appeal went out to the Israeli cabinet to help rescue the trapped White Helmets. In response, the IDF was given orders by President Benjamin Netanyahu to spirit them by bus over the border into Jordan, where they would be safe. Germany, Britain and Canada had committed to absorbing the hundreds of White Helmets and their families escaping the fate that Assad had already visited over the years on hundreds of thousands of Syrians whom he regards as scum, labelling them terrorists for defying his authority. When in fact their work as firefighters, paramedics, in rescue and recovery, has earned them a place of honour and distinction in the historical record.



Though the July rescue was a success it was only a partial success; of the 900 members of the White Helmets trapped within Syria’s southern Daraa and Quneitra provinces only half that number was able to escape, the remainder consisting of a majority of the Civil Defence teams and their families remained trapped as the Russian and Syrian forces moved in too quickly to enable their rescue. Those rescued then spent three months in the Azraq refugee camp which holds an estimated 40,000 Syrian refugees awaiting resettlement.

Members of the White Helmets and their families are escorted onto a bus just past the Syria-Israel border after a harrowing rescue mission.

In August a ceasefire agreement took place permitting civilians and fighters who agreed to surrender their weapons to leave Daraa and buses took them to the province of Idlib in the northwest. Buses then took the remaining White Helmets to the last major rebel stronghold in Syria. "We believe that for them, maybe they’re not 100-per-cent safe from the war in Idlib, but they are in a place where the regime and the Russians can’t kill them. They are continuing their work, working with the White Helmets centres in Idlib", explained Raed Saleh, the head of the White Helmets.

Canada has now taken in, aside from the 40,000 Syrians that have been absorbed as refugees, their share of the White Helmet families, their exact numbers not yet disclosed. Mr. Saleh, speaking for the group he represents and for the Sunni majority Syrians whose millions of lives were shattered as they fled the violence, that neither Canada nor other Western countries should take part in the reconstruction of Syria until a political solution removing Assad from power takes place. "Assad committed war crimes. How can countries like Canada have relations with such a regime?"

Presumably, the thousands of White Helmets remaining in the northwest of Syria to continue their rescue work have the option to remain in the hope that Syria can eventually be reconstructed with its tyrant removed. If so, Russia, committed to the Assad regime's survival, remains to be convinced and that doesn't appear likely. For the time being the Civil Defence families that made it out of Syria are being screened and resettled in France, Argentina, Germany, the United Kingdom and Canada.

"They not only helped rescue people who were caught in the conflict, they also collected evidence of war crimes, and that is why they were threatened directly by the Assad regime. Canada was called upon by the international community directly to respond. It wasn't just us, it was a collection of countries -- and we responded immediately."

"They performed an amazing and brave service on behalf of humanity in the civil war in Syria. It was a tough mission, it was a tough ask, but we delivered because we felt that White Helmets had done an exceptional service for humanity and we needed to be there to help them in their time of need."

Canadian Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen

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The White Helmets Rescued: Thank You, Israel

"Several days ago, U.S. President Trump contacted me, as did Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau and others, and requested that we assist in evacuating hundreds of White Helmets from Syria."
"These are people who have saved lives and whose lives were in danger. Therefore, I approved their passage through Israel to additional countries as an important humanitarian gesture."
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

White Helmet volunteers in Syria carry children out of bombed danger zones. Syria accuses the White Helmets of 'terrorism'. Photo: Sultan Kitaz, Reuters

And nor has this been the sole humanitarian commitment that Israel has been engaged in while Syrian President Bashar al-Assad mutilates and murders children and their Sunni parents, citizens of Syria who have protested their government's oppression of the majority Sunni population. Israeli medics have operated on Syrian children who have been wounded in the air strikes the regime has carried out against its civilian population. And as Syrians attempting to escape the bombardment by Russia's air attacks supporting the Syrian regime's barrel bombs, reaching the Golan Heights, Israel has delivered food, medical supplies and aid.

The selfless courage of the White Helmet volunteers throughout the latter years of this prolonged civil war in exposing themselves to danger while moving into bombed areas to rescue men, women and children buried in rubble. is well known. They have themselves fallen victims to those same attacks when the Syrian military has deliberately aimed at killing them. Hospitals, schools and medical clinics in areas where Sunni Syrians live have been deliberately targeted by both Syrian and Russian planes, to destroy the capacity of medical personnel to operate their facilities to save lives.

Now that the regime is recapturing areas of the country that had fallen to the Syrian rebels, all Sunni Syrians are regarded by their president as traitors. The White Helmets in particular are labelled 'terrorists' by the regime. Which is now excoriating the rescue of hundreds of White Helmet volunteers and their families from the Syrian side of the Golan Heights, bordering Israel. Israel, in a surprise, precise military action, has bused those they had escorted into the Israeli Golan Heights, on to Jordan which had agreed to accept them on a temporary basis.

The evacuation represents the first Israeli intervention (beyond bombing Hezbollah and IRCG transport of weapons) in Syria.  AP Syrian Civil Defense White Helmets

Germany, Canada and the U.K. have agreed to accept all those rescued as refugees. And they are indeed refugees from the carnage and certain death that Assad had planned for the the rescue service volunteers. Syria, in a vitriolic response to their rescue has characterized it as a "criminal operation" undertaken by "Israel and its tools". Also known as the Syria Civil Defence group, Assad accuses them of being a terrorist organization sponsored by the West. The White Helmets, he spits in fury, are joined with Al-Qaeda in Syria.

"98 male and female White Helmet volunteers, with 324 of their family members - mostly women and children - have arrived in Jordan through the occupied Syrian Golan Heights after being forced to flee their homes in southern Syria."
"The UNHCR participated in the coordination of the agreement to resettle the 422 rescue workers and their family members in countries including Germany, the United Kingdom, Canada, among others."
"As Syrians who love our country, it breaks our hearts to be forced to leave it, but it was the only alternative for our trapped volunteers who would otherwise have faced detention or death at the hands of the Syrian regime and its ally Russia."
"In the absence of the requested protection, we thank all governments who contributed to the success of this operation to rescue the rescuers, and we ask that they do more to help the hundreds of thousands remaining in southern Syria. We confirm that the Syrian Civil Defense will continue its mission to serve the Syrian people in all possible areas. 3750 White Helmets remain working on the ground in Syria to do so."
Syrian Civil Defense White Helmets statement 

Note the absence of any mention of Israel in this statement of appreciation.

People walk past Israeli soldiers as they board a bus during the White Helmets extraction from the Golan Heights   Israel Army handout via Reuters

"Israel has always lied claiming that it doesn’t have a relation to the war waged on Syria."
"[Israel] has smuggled hundreds of members of the ‘White Helmets’ terrorist organization and of the leaders of other armed terrorist organizations in cooperation with the governments of the U.S., Britain, Jordan and Germany."
Syrian foreign ministry, Syrian official news agency SANA