What began as a medical emergency quickly turned into an extraordinary story when an Israeli physician discovered a family connection to his patients from Southern Syria.
When new borders were drawn more than 75 years ago, Druze communities that had lived for centuries across what became Israel and Syria suddenly found themselves in separate countries. The Druze are a small Arabic‑speaking religious minority with deep roots in the region; about 150,000 live in Israel today, primarily in the north, where they are known for their strong sense of community and service to the state.
Against this backdrop, an extraordinary reunion took place at Rambam Health Care Campus (Rambam), where a wounded Druze family* from Syria—evacuated after a deadly attack—met, for the first time, an Israeli relative who was also an attending physician in the hospital.
A wounded Druze family were transferred to Rambam earlier this week following a violent attack in southern Syria. The mother, her teenage daughter, and six-year-old son were caught in a deadly assault in the Druze city of Sweida, an attack attributed to Syrian regime forces. Their lives changed in an instant when they were critically injured and the father of the family was killed. The three were evacuated to Rambam as the young boy fought for his life after suffering multiple gunshot wounds and broken bones.
During triage, Rambam’s trauma nurse, who is a Druze woman herself, noticed the family’s surname matched that of a Druze physician on duty. A brief conversation confirmed that the doctor and the injured family were distant relatives—descendants of the same extended family—divided by the 1947 immigration of the physician’s father from Syria to Israel.
“It was a very emotional moment,” the doctor explains. “We had received indirect messages from our family in Syria over the years. But to find myself talking to a relative whom I’d never met before, with the same name as mine—I felt my hair stand on end with excitement.”
Reflecting on the moment, the injured mother shares, “I felt like I was in a place like home, with my family. I hope Israel continues to help the Druze community. The situation in Syria is only getting worse and no one else is helping us.”
Today, the family is receiving multidisciplinary care at Rambam, including trauma, orthopedic, pediatric, and psychological support. Rambam maintains a long-standing policy of providing care to all patients, regardless of nationality or background, and continues to serve as a referral center for humanitarian cases from across the region.
Based on a Hebrew language article in News Haifa Krayot.
