If the border between Israel and Syria opened up, millions of Syrians would want to come to the Jewish State, the mother of a sick child brought to Israel for treatment told Israeli news outlet Chadashot recently.

For the first time, a TV news outlet was permitted by the IDF to film Syrians entering Israel for medical treatment. Several women interviewed were full of extensive praise for Israel, explaining that in light of the country’s humanitarian aid, Israelis, who had once been considered enemies, had become like brothers.

Indeed, this development of goodwill was the ultimate goal of Operation Good Neighbor, a IDF mission begun secretly several years ago to provide aid to Syrians who came to the Syrian-Israeli border seeking medical help.

The operation expanded into a humanitarian aid initiative, with the IDF transferring tons of food, clothes, heating and cooking fuel, and even diapers to Syrians suffering under their country’s ongoing civil war.

To date, Israel has treated about 3,000 Syrians injured in the fighting, and nearly 1,000 children.

The Chadashot report followed 21 women and 23 children as they made their way from the Syrian side of the border into Israel early one recent morning. IDF soldiers waited for them at an agreed-upon spot before allowing them, under surveillance, through the gate.

These children had been selected by Syrian doctors as needing the higher-quality medical care available in Israel. One mother told a reporter that she would rather bring her child to Israel than Damascus for treatment.

“The first time you saw an Israeli soldier in uniform, how did you feel?” The reporter asked one woman as they walked from the border towards the coach bus that would bring the group to Ziv Hospital in the northern city of Tzfat.

“I felt that he was our brother,” she immediately replied.

“In the past Israel was thought of as an enemy,” another explained, “But now that they have reached out their hand to help us, most of the people are with you, they love Israel. They see the true face [of Israel].”

“I am very, very happy” to be in Israel, one mother said, adding that she was not at all afraid of being in a country once considered an enemy. “Why should I be afraid?”

At the hospital, kids were provided with paper and crayons, and sat drawing and coloring with IDF soldiers. Many even drew Israeli flags.

The group was given breakfast, and a medical clown was brought to help relax the children.

“Once they understand we’re not going to abuse them but help them, they open up, they start to talk,” Major Sergei Kotikov, IDF director of Operation Good Neighbor, told Chadashot. “And then they start to tell us about what they’ve been through.”

Several women described the difficult living conditions in southern Syria, much of which is engulfed in warfare. One woman became visibly emotional when speaking of her appreciation for Israel, telling the reporter, “I wish we could stay here.”

When asked what would happen if the gates of the Israeli-Syrian border were opened that day, the woman replied without hesitation, “I would be the first to pass through them.”

“And how many would come after you? Millions?” asked the reporter.

“All of Syria would come after me. All of the citizens still in Syria, they would all come.”

Watch the video [in Hebrew]: