Israel extended an offer of humanitarian aid to Lebanon following the devastating explosion in the capital city of Beirut on Tuesday.

“Israel has approached Lebanon through international security and diplomatic channels and has offered the Lebanese government medical and humanitarian assistance,” Defense Minister Gantz and Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi said in a joint statement.

The offer, which was extended through the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, UN and France, included an offer to provide medical supplies as well as treat the wounded in Israeli hospitals.

“Under the guidance of Israel’s Defense Ministry and Foreign Ministry, Israel has offered to send humanitarian and medical assistance to Lebanon via security and international channels,” the IDF stated. “This is the time to transcend conflict.”

Israel’s hospitals in the north of the country are preparing to accept Lebanese civilians wounded in the massive blast, Israeli media reports said. News reports from Lebanon paint a chaotic picture in Beirut, with patients being turned away from hospitals due to lack of room and people simply dying due to lack of access to medical care. Furthermore, many hospitals were damaged by the blast and the patients they can accept are being treated in makeshift outdoor locations, by the light of flashlights after dark and without electricity.

Ziv Hospital in Tzfat reinforced its staff on Tuesday night to prepare for the possible arrival of wounded Lebanese citizens. Its director, Dr. Salman Zarka, said in an interview on Radio 103FM that the chances of Lebanese civilians coming to Ziv are not that great, and “it’s very chaval that people will die due to this.”

Ziv Hospital has provided medical care for Syrian civilians wounded in the country’s civil war in the past.

Dr. Masad Barhoum, the director of the Galil Medical Center in Nahariya, which also provided medical care for over 1,600 Syrians victims of the civil war in the past, reached out in Arabic to the Lebanese prime minister: “We only want to provide assistance,” he said. “Whoever comes to us will receive care and leave G-d willing healthy and whole.”

In 2007, Dr. Barhoum was the first Israeli-Arab appointed as a director of an Israeli hospital. Dr. Zarka, the director of Ziv, is Druze.

Before the year 2000, when Israel withdrew its troops from southern Lebanon, about one-third of the patients in the center’s ophthalmology department were Lebanese citizens who received care free of charge.

(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)