The IDF provided medical care to four wounded Syrians who approached the border fence with Israel on Wednesday, evacuating two of them to Israeli hospitals for further treatment, the IDF Spokesman’s Office stated.

Netanyahu looks at Syrian patient IDF field hospital. – Photo: KOBI GIDEON/GPO

The treatment was provided for humanitarian reasons and was approved by IDf Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Benny Gantz.

The IDF emphasized that the incident did not constitute a change in Israel’s policy regarding the acceptance of refugees from Syria. The army stated that the two wounded Syrians taken to Israel would be returned to Syria following treatment.

Israel took in seven wounded Syrians for treatment last month, admitting them to Ziv Hospital in Safed. The Syrians were wounded in the civil war between forces loyal to President Bashar Assad and armed rebels. Israel admitted the Syrians on Feb. 16 through the Golan Heights, whose eastern foothills have seen increased fighting between the sides.

Six of the seven Syrians admitted on February 16 were repatriated to Syria after treatment on February 27. The seventh was still under Israeli medical care with severe wounds.

The Syrian civil war also crossed into Lebanese territory on Wednesday, when five shells fired from Syria landed in Lebanon, one day after Lebanese President Michel Suleiman warned that Syrian strikes on its neighbor were an unacceptable violation of its sovereignty.

Witnesses said the shells landed in fields near al-Qasr, a village less than a mile (1.6 km) from the border, but no one was hurt.

The Syrian government, battling a two-year-old revolt against four decades of rule by the Assad family, has warned it may strike at Syrian rebels taking refuge across the frontier.

Lebanon, which fought its own civil war from 1975 to 1990, has tried to maintain a policy of “dissociation” from Syria’s conflict.

View original Jerusalem Post publication at: http://www.jpost.com/Defense/IDF-admits-2-wounded-Syrians-to-hospital-in-Israel-307068