Reader’s Digest
108 july 2019
stating that there was a very real
risk that White Helmets could be
detained or killed. The response to
her message was swift: Yes, there was
a responsibility to help.
At the NATO foreign ministers’
summit in Brussels on 11 July,
Canada’s minister of foreign
affairs, Chrysta Freeland, made an
impassioned plea to the assembled
foreign ministers. “We have to do
something,” she said. “We cannot
leave the White Helmets behind.
We have a moral obligation to
these people.”
If a deal was struck, it had to
include resettlement. The United
Kingdom, Germany and France
responded positively to Freeland’s
plea. While the Brussels meeting
galvanized the diplomats, politicians
and aid workers, time was running
out. The threatened White Helmets
were on the run, concealing their
identities, counting on strangers for
clandestine help and staying in touch
with Mayday Rescue through coded
WhatsApp and text messages.
By now, Assad’s advancing army
had closed off the border to Jordan,
leaving the Golan Heights as the only
crossing point available. Securing
Israeli cooperation was paramount,
and Jordan had to sign off on
receiving the rescued men, women
and children from Israel, even if only
for a short stay.
As Canada’s ambassador to Israel,
Deborah Lyons, notes, “The Israeligovernment and military put human
life ahead of politics and said, ‘We are
there to help the White Helmets and
to work with the rest of the coalition
to get them out safely.’” The White
Helmets could transit through the
Golan Heights to Jordan.
Now, it was a race against the clock.O
n 19 July, Mayday Rescue
sent a coded message to the
White Helmets: “Head to the
border with Israel.” The instruction
seemed counter-intuitive—Israel
was an enemy border. But it was
the only option available. The
beleaguered White Helmets began
moving from dozens of locations
toward the Golan Heights.
The plan was to unlock the gate,
receive the White Helmets, process
them and load them on to buses
bound for Jordan. Representatives of
the Jordanian government were there
to observe the evacuation, as were
UN officials. Mayday Rescue had sent
White Helmets Jihad Mahameed and
Farouq Habib, each with a satellite
phone so the partners could be in
touch throughout the evacuation. The
two men knew first-hand the danger
the White Helmets and their families
were in. On this night, they waited for
the border to open.
In Amman, the anxiety level at
the Mayday Rescue office and the
Canadian Embassy in Tel Aviv and
the foreign affairs office in Ottawa
was palpable. So many things could