Hundreds of Syrian emergency rescuers and their families were evacuated from the country’s southwest with Israel’s help, passing through territory it controls to Jordan as the regime of President Bashar al-Assad takes control of one of the last remaining opposition strongholds.
The Israel Defense Forces said Sunday that rescuers and their families were recently evacuated “from the war zone in Southern Syria due to an immediate threat to their lives” at the request of the U.S. and European countries. The civilians were subsequently transferred to a neighboring country, it said.
The Jordanian government said Saturday night that it had agreed to allow passage for 800 Syrian rescuers—known as the White Helmets—and their families in an evacuation and resettlement operation being overseen by the United Nations, according to the government news agency Petra.
The trip was eventually made by 422 Syrians, Jordan’s foreign minister, Ayman Safadi, said on Twitter.
In a video message Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he approved the evacuation of the White Helmets through Israel to different countries but added that Israel is “not ceasing to act in Syria against Iran’s attempt to entrench militarily there.”
A White Helmets spokesman, Raed Al Saleh, said on Twitter that they were evacuated for “humanitarian conditions” after they were surrounded in a dangerous area.
During the early weeks of a Syrian government offensive aided by Russian airstrikes, some rebel groups reached piecemeal agreements to surrender and withdraw from towns and cities and in recent days other factions ceded all remaining opposition control in the country’s southwest. The exact details of the agreements aren’t clear, but already hundreds of rebel fighters and civilians have boarded buses to the country’s northwest province of Idlib, one of the last remaining opposition-held pockets. A group affiliated with Islamic State still controls a small pocket now under attack by the Syrian regime.
Western nations, including the U.S., have supported the White Helmets, which are the only organized and semiprofessional rescue organization that operates in rebel-held parts of Syria. They have become famous and featured in an Oscar-winning documentary for saving the lives of thousands of civilians who have come under attack in the Assad regime’s brutal campaign to retake the entire country. They have saved more than 115,000 lives during their years of work, according to a British statement.
In the process they have put themselves at risk as well. Dozens of White Helmet members have been killed and many more have been injured and maimed—often in the regime’s double-tap attacks that target those who come to rescue the victims of an initial attack.
But the risk now facing the White Helmets in southwest Syria is different than the barrel bombs and rockets the regime and its ally Russia have rained down on opposition territory. They fear arrest and worse at the hands of the Syrian regime, which has accused the group of being terrorists and allied with al Qaeda.
“White Helmets have been the target of attacks and, due to their high profile, we judged that, in these particular circumstances, the volunteers required immediate protection,” Britain’s foreign secretary and international development secretary said in a joint statement Sunday.
The Western countries believed that the members of the White Helmets would have been at risk had they evacuated along with others from the south all the way to northwest Idlib province—crossing through hundreds of miles of hostile government-controlled territory.
In the wake of previous regime captures of opposition-controlled territory, some White Helmet members have been arrested by the government.
The rescuers and their families will stay in Jordan for a maximum of three months, according to Jordan’s state news agency. They will then await resettlement through the UNHCR, the United Nations refugee agency, in either Britain, Canada or Germany because of the risks they face if they were to remain in Syria. Other European countries including France, Sweden and the Netherlands have also offered to take them.
Canada in a statement said it was working in close partnership with the U.K. and Germany to lead “an international effort to ensure the safety of White Helmets and their families.”
The evacuation was an exceptional humanitarian gesture, the Israeli military said, adding that it continues to maintain a nonintervention policy regarding the Syrian conflict.
The Jordanian and Israeli governments both have refused to allow Syrians displaced by the government offensive to capture the southwest region of Daraa and Qunietra provinces to cross into their countries.
Jordan said it was overwhelmed with the some 1.3 million Syrian refugees already living there. Israel’s policy of not accepting refugees remains in place, a senior Israeli military official has said, adding that few Syrians would want to seek asylum there.
But both countries stepped up aid deliveries into southern Syria to meet the needs of people fleeing their homes to ramshackle encampments along the borders.
—Dov Lieber in Tel Aviv contributed to this article.
Write to Raja Abdulrahim at raja.abdulrahim@wsj.com
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