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Monday, September 07, 2015

Israelis have been helping Syrian refugees for years

The world seems to have discovered the Syrian refugee crisis this past week. But Israeli aid has been flowing to them since at least June 2013.

IsraAID has distributed over ten tons of aid over the past two years to Syrian refugees in Jordan.

A JTA article in October 2013 gave some details:

MAFRAQ, Jordan— The purple plastic sacks fill two rooms in the otherwise sparsely furnished headquarters of a Jordanian NGO, awaiting distribution to Syrian refugees already lined up on the sidewalk.

They contain an array of staple dry goods — lentils, pasta, powdered milk, tea — as well as a range of hygiene products like soap and detergent, enough for 250 refugee families. But before the goods are handed out, one thing will be removed — the word “Jewish.”

Going sack by sack with a pair of scissors, an aid worker begins to cut.

“We don’t announce with trumpets that we’re Israeli,” the worker says. “There’s no need for that. Once you let that cat out of the bag, everything starts to blow up.”
Jordan hasn't been the only theatre for Israeli aid. This article is from March 2014:
IsraAID, an Israeli civilian disaster relief organization, will send a team to Bulgaria on Monday to help the country with its growing Syrian refugee population, which presently stands at 11,000.

The mission will provide food and supplies, as well as assist the authorities in constructing a program to improve the psycho-social wellbeing of the refugees, the organization said.

The Bulgarian government issued an appeal to the international community after struggling to feed and house the thousands of Syrians who had fled to the country via Turkey.
This is all besides the many Syrians who have been treated in Israeli hospitals since the war began.

Israel has nothing to apologize for.

The rest of the world that has all but ignored the Syrian crisis, however, is a different story.