Deputy Minister Ayoub Kara visited the Rambam Hospital in Haifa on Monday, where he was assured by Director General Professor Rafael Beyar that the hospital is prepared to receive casualties from Syria should the need arise.
“The Rambam Hospital is prepared to receive Syrian casualties and provide them with immediate treatment and it is the most effective hospital that can provide this service, since many members of our medical staff are Arab-speakers, and Rambam’s trauma and intensive care units are among the best in the world,” Beyar told Kara.
Kara said last month that Israel would be willing to help treat casualties from the ongoing fighting in Syria as well as fly medical aid via Jordan to victims of the ongoing crackdown there.
Kara, who maintains close contacts with representatives of the Syrian opposition, was placed in charge of coordinating the transfer of humanitarian aid from Israel to Syrian citizens.
He has also said that he has been presented with evidence that President Bashar Assad’s forces have been using chemical weapons and other unconventional weapons against rebels who oppose the regime.
During his tour of the hospital, Deputy Minister Kara was shown the new massive underground hospital currently under construction. The underground facility, built to withstand rocket attacks in the aftermath of the relentless rocket fire rained on Haifa in the Second Lebanon War, will be the world's largest.
The underground bunker will contain 2,000 beds and will be protected against both conventional weapons and non-conventional weapons. Rambam has also inaugurated a new department for children who have been diagnosed with cancer and leukemia and who hail from Arab countries, from the Palestinian Authority and from the Israeli Arab sector. Hospital management has reported that the success rate in treating these children exceeds 80%.
Following his tour of the hospital, Deputy Minister Kara said, “Prof. Beyar and I agreed that the Rambam Hospital will be ready to respond to any call to help wounded Syrians everywhere that it will be deemed fit, including evacuating Syrians for treatment at the Rambam Hospital in Haifa.”
Meanwhile on Monday, Jordan decided to start setting up emergency camps to accommodate Syrian refugees who have arrived in the Kingdom since the outbreak of the unrest in the country.
According to a report in the Petra news agency, the number of Syrians who fled their country to Jordan since the eruption of the unrest has surpassed 130,000, according to Jordanian government figures.
The report said that the Jordanian government has also decided to allow the International Organization for Migration to establish a camp for foreigners fleeing the turmoil in Syria in order to allow the international body to decide on their status: whether to send them to their home countries, transfer them to a third country or send them back to Syria.