(Photo: Basel Awidat/Flash90)
By Abigail Klein Leichman - July 3, 2018
“Salam Aleikum” began the letter that hundreds of Syrian refugees found attached to tents they received last week via the Israel Defense Forces’ Operation Good Neighbor.
The letter was hastily written in English by Gal Lusky, who has been supplying humanitarian aid to Syrian victims of the civil war since 2011 through her secretive nonprofit, Israeli Flying Aid.
Finally, she wanted to introduce herself.
“Although you are considered to be our sworn enemies and although by operating in the field our volunteers were risking their lives, as the descendants of Jews that survived the Holocaust, we, the volunteers of Israeli Flying Aid, proud Jewish citizens of the State of Israel, sanctify life and will not stand idly by as women and children are continuously slaughtered,” Lusky wrote.
Within 24 hours, she started receiving emails in response — including children’s drawings that brought tears to her eyes.
“I’m so emotional about it,” Lusky tells ISRAEL21c. “I needed those people to know who we are. I want them to feel a tiny bit of solidarity, to fill their souls as well as their stomachs.”
Read More: Israel21c