The White Helmets have saved hundreds of civilians from fighting. They were evacuated via Israel as bombs rained on its border with Syria Hundreds of White Helmets volunteer workers have been rescued from Syria in a British-brokered moonlight evacuation through Israel and Jordan. The operation, early this morning, was the culmination of two weeks of frenzied negotiations and lobbying between the governments of the UK, Germany and Canada and the Jordanian and Israeli militaries. Sponsored Some 422 people, including women and children, crossed from Syria into the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights before travelling on into Jordan — an almost unprecedented display of military and diplomatic co-operation between Israel and an Arab state. “It is both tragic and incredible,” a source told The Times. “We have managed to rescue the rescuers. These people have been saving lives for the past five years.” The White Helmets are search-and-rescue volunteers who operate<doc-sep>Editor’s Note: Gayle Tzemach Lemmon is an adjunct senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. She is the author of “Ashley’s War: The Untold Story of a Team of Women Soldiers on the Special Ops Battlefield.” The opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author; view more opinion articles on CNN. (CNN) — In the dead of night and with help from countries including the United States, Canada, Jordan, Israel and the United Kingdom, the rescuers got rescued themselves. Almost immediately, the Syrian regime and its Russian backers criticized the operation. And the White Helmets. Courtesy Gayle Lemmon Gayle Tzemach Lemmon But no amount of online targeting from the Syrian regime or its Russian backers can change the fact that these ordinary people from a whole slew of backgrounds came together as the White Helmets to rescue civilians in the midst of war — for years and at great risk to themselves. The White Helmets deserved rescue. Indeed, the extraction of more than 400 Syrian Civil Defense members – known as White Helmets – from Syria this week as the Syrian regime neared their location was a rare reminder that countries can indeed work together effectively to protect people who have worked to help and to save others. That the Syrian regime called their rescue a “criminal operation” should surprise few and confuse even fewer. The reason they earned the label is twofold: for the last half-decade, not only did they help rescue people in the aftermath of attacks by the Syrian regime, but they also documented what was happening on the ground, sharing what they saw with local and international organizations and chronicling events such as the April 2017 chemical weapons attack in Khan Sheikhoun. “While the Syrian-Russian military coalition conducted indiscriminate attacks on civilian populations in areas like Eastern Ghouta, Idlib and now, Daraa and Quneitra, the White Helmets were pulling the injured from under rubble, burying the dead, putting out fires, and conducting countless search and rescue operations,” noted Human Rights Watch. “They bore witness to many of the atrocities that characterized the conflict.” The White Helmets, formed in late 2012 and early 2013, are a volunteer force that has grown from a few dozen to several thousand members from multiple walks of life, from blacksmiths to barbers. Some 200 members of the group have been killed in the process of daring to go toward danger rather than away from it, running to try to rescue civilians in the immediate aftermath of aerial attacks. As CNN’s Hala Gorani noted, “Some of the defining images of the civil war, of bloodied bodies covered head to toe in concrete dust – yet miraculously alive — have come from the very people who have saved them.” For this work bearing witness – captured in a Netflix documentary and in international media – they were called “terrorists” by the Syrian government. And they bore the brunt of Russian propaganda starting in 2015 as the Russians ratcheted up their efforts inside Syria to protect and advance the interests of the Syrian regime by air and on the ground. The White Helmets were accused of being linked to al Qaeda. Called “crisis actors.” Accused of staging “fake attacks.” And trolled mercilessly online. The Guardian last December called these efforts to discredit the White Helmets an “extraordinary disinformation campaign” as it noted researchers “found evidence of a targeted Russian influence campaign against the White Helmets.” One computer science professor at Indiana University, Fil Menczer, developed a tool called Hoaxy to chart the spread of misinformation online. Searching for “White Helmets” reveals a handful of sources generated hundreds of stories about the organization. “It’s like a factory,” he told the paper. Indeed, in the immediate aftermath of the rescue of the search-and-rescuers, the Russian Embassy in Israel tweeted, “July 22 West evacuated #WhiteHelmets pseudo-humanitarians via #Israel. These militants acted exclusively in areas controlled by Islamic radicals,concocted #fakenews, staged chemical provocations like in #EasternGhouta. They flee #Syria and reveal who they are.” Get our free weekly newsletter Sign up for CNN Opinion's new newsletter. Join us on Twitter and Facebook Yes. They revealed who they are: regular people who regularly devoted themselves to clearing others out from under rubble. People whose work led to the creation of an unusual international alliance to get them out of danger. And people whose daring rescue showed once more the power of something we haven’t seen in a while: just how much good is possible when countries work together.<doc-sep>“It was an operation to rescue the rescuers,” said one person with knowledge of the mission who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to publicly discuss its details. “They were in a terrible state. They’d been on the move for days, having to rely on really scant information. Even hours before, they didn’t know what was going to happen.”<doc-sep>(CNN) — Efforts to evacuate nearly 300 White Helmet members, left stranded in southern Syria after they were unable to reach an evacuation point in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights on Sunday, have failed thus far, the volunteer rescue group told CNN Monday. “Syrian regime checkpoints did not allow the majority of us to reach the evacuation point,” Abu Mohmmad, a White Helmets volunteer, said. “The situation is getting worse by the minute, especially after the batch of White Helmets who have managed to leave yesterday morning, the regime is looking for us.” Israel assisted with the evacuation Sunday of hundreds of the rescue workers and their family members, but the remaining group couldn’t make it to the evacuation point due to heavy fighting between ISIS and the Syrian regime, the White Helmets volunteers told CNN. That fighting has intensified in recent days as Syria tries to eradicate the last remaining ISIS pockets in the southern part of the country. “Our names were on the evacuation list from the beginning. … We tried by all means, but the roads were not safe,” White Helmets member Abu Laith told CNN. “We are currently appealing to the world and don’t know our fate. Our situation is very miserable. We are besieged.” Another White Helmets volunteer, Mohammad Abdallah, told CNN he was told to cross to the Golan Heights without their families, “which was something rejected by us because the retribution by the Syrian regime and its allied militias is a bigger (risk to) our families.” “We are now 300 volunteer members, men and women, living in constant fear and constant desperation,” Abdallah added. RESCUED: @SyriaCivilDef faced an immediate threat to their lives in Syria. We rescued hundreds of them and their families. They passed through Israel and are now out of harm's way. We conducted this life-saving mission at the request of the US, Canada, and EU countries. — Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) July 22, 2018 US, some European countries requested evacuation The Syrians evacuated Sunday were transferred to Jordan via Israel, at the request of the United States and some European countries, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said in a statement after the operation. Israel described the move as an “exceptional humanitarian gesture,” adding that it “continues to maintain a non-intervention policy regarding the Syrian conflict.” The civilians were evacuated from the war zone in Southern Syria due to an immediate threat to their lives. The transfer of the displaced Syrians through Israel is an exceptional humanitarian gesture — Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) July 22, 2018 A number of those evacuated were from the White Helmets volunteer rescue group, known as the Syrian Civil Defense. The Syrian regime described the Sunday evacuation of White Helmet volunteers with Israeli assistance as a “criminal operation” that has revealed “the terrorist nature” of the group, the official news agency SANA reported Monday, quoting an unnamed foreign ministry official. The transferred Syrians will remain in a restricted area in Jordan for the time being, Jordanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Mohammad al-Kayed told the Jordanian state-run Petra news agency, before onward transfer to Britain, Germany and Canada within the next three months. Jordan had originally said 800 Syrians were evacuated and Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi tweeted on Sunday that the original agreement was for 800 but that they later settled at 422. “For humanitarian reasons, Jordan gave the United Nations permission to organize the passage of Syrians who entered the Occupied Golan after Britain, Germany and Canada presented a legally binding pledge to resettle them after three months,” Safadi tweeted Sunday. “The number requested was 800 but the actual number settled at 422,” he added. Remaining White Helmets in danger “We are still in danger,” Abu Muhanad, another White Helmet member, told CNN. “Saving lives is the biggest crime we are charged with; now we are called terrorists because we save lives.” He says they are between a rock and a hard place: considered “terrorists” by the regime, they don’t have any bargaining chips, unlike the rebels, who have their weapons. Moreover, now that Israel has helped the evacuation, they face a new charge of being “collaborators with Israel.” 07:33 - Source: CNN Saving lives in Syria: the White Helmets Through videos, pictures, and social media, the White Helmets are widely seen as having played an important role in showing the international community the horrors of the Syrian civil war. Their volunteers have gone into war-stricken areas, searching for survivors, winning them support from many countries, including the United States. The White Helmets “used to see death while doing our work saving lives from underneath airstrikes and barrel bombs. Now we see death in a different way – not knowing what will happen to us,” Muhanad added. Canada will resettle up to 50 White Helmets and their families, a Canadian official with direct knowledge of the resettlement efforts told CNN. The total number of people could be over 200, nearly half of the Syrians evacuated into Jordan on Sunday. However, taking 50 families may not be necessary as there have been multiple offers from allies to resettle the volunteer rescuers, according to the official. Germany said Monday they would be taking eight White Helmet refugees. The UK confirmed to CNN they will offer asylum to some of the rescue workers but have not given any numbers. “The ongoing military offensive and ever greater territorial gains by the Syrian regime in southern Syria have created a clear and present danger for the White Helmets and their families,” German Federal Minister of the Interior Horst Seehofer said in a statement Monday. “These people, who have risked their lives to aid and rescue the civilian population, and to reduce their suffering, are now themselves in need of help. Granting them protection is, I believe, a humanitarian duty and an expression of my policy to uphold humanity and order in migration policy. “ CNN’s Oren Liebermann and Sheena McKenzie contributed to this report.<doc-sep>
The Syrian government of President Bashar Assad on Monday blasted Israel, the United States and other nations for evacuating hundreds of Syrian Civil Defense "White Helmets" rescue workers and their families from Assad's advancing forces. The rescue was organized by Israel, which has otherwise avoided direct intervention in the brutal civil war ravaging its neighbor. Assad's forces recently overwhelmed rebel areas bordering Jordan and Golan Heights, Syrian territory occupied by Israel. "It is pretty clear that Assad is winning the Syrian civil war – decisively," said James Piazza, a Penn State professor and Middle East expert. "I think it is likely he will completely crush the rebels sooner rather than later." The White Helmets are a volunteer aid and rescue NGO supported and lauded by the West, credited for saving thousands of civilians from the onslaught of Syrian troops and their allies driving Western-backed rebel groups from what were once rebel strongholds. The search and rescue team has long claimed neutrality, but Syria, Russia and Iran dismiss the group as a propaganda arm of the rebels. Despite the evacuation effort, hundreds remain in Syria. “Words are not enough to express the discontent which the Syrians feel towards these mean conspiracies and the limitless support provided by the Western states, Israel and Jordan to the White Helmets ... and other terrorist organizations," the Syrian Foreign Ministry said in a statement. Piazza said there is no evidence to support Syrian claims that the White Helmets organization has aided armed combatants or are a conduit for Islamic extremists. Assad's forces recently overwhelmed rebel areas bordering Jordan and Golan Heights, Syrian territory occupied by Israel. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said President Donald Trump, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and others requested Israel's assistance in the evacuations of "people who have saved lives and whose lives were in danger." More:U.S. denies Syria claim that U.S.-led coalition bombed troops More:Syrian army, police celebrate recapturing all of Damascus British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt called the evacuations "fantastic news," and the Trump administration said it "deeply appreciates" Israel's role and Jordan's "generosity." “We are glad that these ‎brave volunteers, who have saved thousands of lives, are now out of harm's way,” said State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert in a statement. “The White Helmets have consistently been targeted by the Assad regime." She said the evacuees, more than half of whom are children, were allowed entry into Jordan temporarily. Plans call for the evacuees to be placed in "permanent homes" in Canada, Germany and the United Kingdom, Nauert said. The civil war in Syria has dragged on for more than seven years, resulting in hundreds of thousands of deaths and an unrelenting humanitarian crisis. A Syrian offensive that began last month has battered the few remaining rebel holdouts, and Assad continues to solidify gains and his power. Netanyahu met with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Jerusalem on Monday. Israeli media said the prime minister pressed for, among other things, keeping pro-Iranian forces in Syria at least 60 miles from the Israeli border. Russia's support has been key to Assad's survival and the all but certain defeat of the rebels. Piazza said Putin has made Syria the showpiece of its resurrection as a global superpower – and a player in the Middle East. "It is hard to remember that at one time, in 2011, many policymakers and commentators regarded Assad as a dead man walking," Piazza said. "Assad’s regime is in very good shape in terms of taking control over the remainder of the country."