Syrian Rebel Commander Confesses to Recieving Medical, Military Aids from Israel

Sharif as-Safouri, a Free Syrian Army commander, who was abducted by Al-Nusra Front in July confessed to receiving antitank weapons in return for protecting the occupied Golan Heights border for Israel.
According to a report by Lebanon’s al-Ahd news website, Safouri said he collaborated with Israel in return for medical and military support, in a video released this week.

In a video uploaded to YouTube by the Executive Sharia Council in the Eastern Daraa region, an Islamic court established by Al-Nusra in Southern Syria, Sharif As-Safouri, the commander of the Free Syrian Army’s Al-Haramein Battalion, admitted to having entered Israel five times to meet with Israeli officers who later provided him with Soviet anti-tank weapons and light arms.

Safouri was abducted by the al-Qaeda-affiliated Al-Nusra Front in the Quneitra area, near the Israeli border, on July 22.

“The (opposition) factions would receive support and send the injured in (to Israel) on the condition that the Israeli fence area is secured. No person was allowed to come near the fence without prior coordination with Israeli authorities,” Safouri said in the video.

In the edited confession video, in which Safouri seems physically unharmed, he said that at first he met with an Israeli officer named Ashraf at the border and was given an Israeli cellular phone. He later met with another officer named Younis and with the two men’s commander, Abu Daoud. In total, Safouri said he entered Israel five times for meetings that took place in Tiberias.

Following the meetings, Israel began providing Safouri and his men with “basic medical support and clothes” as well as weapons, which included 30 Russian (rifles), 10 RPG launchers with 47 rockets, and 48,000 5.56 millimeter bullets.

Earlier reports also indicated that Israeli hospitals are treating the injured Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) militants fighting in Syria.

Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu also has made a visit to the field hospital established by the Israeli authorities on the occupied Syrian territories to treat insurgents.

Reports said in May that some 283 terrorists have so far been treated in Zif Hospital in the occupied city of Safed, added to several other hundreds who have been receiving treatment at other Israeli hospitals after getting wounded while being chased by the Syrian army.