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The United Kingdom is willing to offer asylum to some of the 500 members or family members of Syrian civil defense volunteers known as White Helmets who were rescued from Syria and evacuated to Jordan , learned the Guardian. White helmets and their families were evacuated by the Israel Defense Forces on a perilous mission Saturday night, crossing northern Israel to three points in Jordan. The Israelis initially put the evacuated numbers at 800, but later the figure was revised downward by James Le Mesurier, a former MI5 British officer who is believed to have founded the group in Turkey in 2013.
People were rescued, including 98 White Helmets. No less than 800 others have failed to escape or have chosen not to do so.
The Israeli operation was undertaken at the request of several countries including the United Kingdom, British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt and the International Secretary of Development. , Penny Mordaunt, said in a joint statement. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu writes on Twitter: "A few days ago, President Trump contacted me, as did Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau and others, and asked that we help to evacuating hundreds of white helmets from Syria, people who saved lives and whose lives were in danger, and allowed them to be transferred by Israel to other countries as an important humanitarian gesture. "
Britain will not confirm Jordan's reports that Germany, Britain and Canada have made a legal commitment to take the refugees within three months. the processes put in place by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) for the Resettlement of Vulnerable Persons project were to be used to identify eligible White Helmets to come to the United Kingdom.
German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer The newspaper that Germany would take in eight members of white helmets and their families.
The move was "an expression of my position of ensuring humanity and order in migration policy," he said.
Helmets of volunteers and their families, totaling up to 250 people, said the country's public broadcaster, CBC, citing senior officials.
Netanyahu: Trump, Trudeau and others asked to extract white helmets – video
Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland said she had "called for world leadership to support and help these heroes" at the NATO summit last week. Other countries should also make offers.
Jordan had banned refugees from crossing the border with Syria, even though many of them were under heavy bombardment of a Syrian-Russian joint air and land offensive
<img clbad = "gu-image" itemprop = "contentUrl" alt = "Syrian refugees fleeing the conflict in the province of Deraa are seated near the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights Photo: Alaa Al-Faqir / Reuters
News of the operation came from the Israeli army, which stated that overnight it had completed "a humanitarian effort to rescue members of a Syrian civilian organization and their families. families … because of an immediate threat.
He said that he had acted on a directive from the Israeli government and at the request of the United States and European countries.
On Saturday, Israeli security forces closed the roads on the occupied Golan Heights on the Syrian border. evacuation operation. The refugees were taken to Jordan by three roads
Jordan closed its borders, declaring that its refugee camps are already full with more than 600,000 registered Palestinian and Palestinian refugees, as well as hundreds of thousands of unregistered refugees .
The Syrian government launched an offensive in June forcing hundreds of displaced people to take refuge on the Israeli-Jordanian border.
White Helmets operated in areas held by the opposition to rescue civilians from the rubble of air attacks. Western agents of Russia because their work was funded by the UK Foreign Office (FCO) and the White House. Their images of the impact of the air strikes also shocked the western world and revealed the often brutal impact of the Syrian air campaign. More than 250 of his volunteers were killed in attacks.
Members of the White Helmets were considered likely to be targeted by the Syrian Army once it regained control of the southwestern part of Syria. The Russian Embbady in the Netherlands hailed their departure, accusing them of making false allegations of chemical weapons attacks.
Defending the exception granted to White Helmets, Mohammed Al-Kayed, the Jordanian spokesman, said the transfer of the White Helmets does not put the kingdom under any other obligations. He said aid workers would remain in a closed place and that Britain, Germany and Canada agreed to relocate them within three months.
The FCO stated that the closed place was under the control of UNHCR.
Justifying the operation, Hunt and Mourdant said: "The White Helmets saved more than 115,000 lives during the Syrian conflict, at great risk to theirs.Many White Helmets volunteers were also killed while doing so. their work – trying to rescue civilians trapped in bombed out buildings or providing first aid to wounded civilians.The white helmets were attacked and, because of their high visibility, we judged that, in these particular circumstances, the volunteers needed immediate protection, so we have taken steps to provide this protection to the greatest number of volunteers and their families.
" We pay tribute to the courageous and selfless work that White Helmets volunteers have done to save Syrians from all sides of the conflict. "
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Since the formation of the White Helmets, as the Syrian conflict approached its third year, more than 200 of its volunteers died and 500 others were injured. 19659002] Some members received training abroad, including in Turkey, returning to teach their colleagues about search and rescue techniques.
The group receives funding from a number of governments, including Britain, Germany and the United States.
The Syrian government and its Russian ally called the White Helmets terrorists, and accused them of being agents of foreign powers and cooperating with radical insurgent groups. Moscow and Damascus also accused the White Helmets of organizing rescue missions and chemical attacks on the government.
State media said Sunday that Israel, with which Syria is officially at war, had facilitated the evacuation. of the group's collaboration with an enemy power. Al-Ikhbariya, a Syrian state television channel, called the evacuation a "scandal" and the official SANA news agency said the group's "secret" had been revealed and that his "agent role had ended."
Abboud said the foreign powers "were pulling their agents off the battlefield" because of the Syrian military victories that had canceled the aggression against the country.
The evacuation was the first Israeli intervention in the long Syrian civil war, now in its eighth year. Although she has sent aid to the country and provided medical care to thousands of Syrians who have reached the Golan Heights border, the Israeli army said its actions did not reflect a change in the official Israeli non-intervention policy. conflicts are considered hostile.
His forces also sometimes conducted military strikes in Syria.
Israel seized 460 square kilometers (1,200 square kilometers) of the Golan Heights from Syria in 1967 during the six-day war and annexed it later, a move that has never been internationally recognized
. supported the offensive aimed at retaking the provinces of Deraa and Quneitra against the rebels on 19 June. A month later, government institutions seem to want to return to most of the two provinces thanks to a combination of deadly bombings and capitulations negotiated by Moscow
The agreements provide that the rebels will hand over their heavy weapons and those who will not be killed. Agreement with the government. Jihadists are not party to the agreements, and Russian planes have bombed an ISIS hold-up in Daraa province, said a UK-based war watchdog. More than 20,000 civilians have fled to government-controlled areas to escape the shelling of the Isis-held zone on the border with Jordan and the Israeli-occupied Golan in the past 24 hours, according to the report. Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
A France-Presse and the Associated Press contributed to the writing of this report
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