Chareidie Girl That Crossed into Syria And Had to be Exchanged for Arabs Previously Wrote ‘No fence will stop me,’ on Facebook

The Israeli woman who crossed into Syria and was returned in a deal brokered by Russia, in a picture shown by Channel 12 on February 20, 2021 

 Hebrew media on Saturday showed the first images of the Israeli woman who crossed into Syria two weeks ago, and was returned under a murky deal brokered by Russia. Her Facebook posts had her defiantly vowing that “No fence will stop me.”

The images were shown as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that no Israeli vaccine doses have been sent to Syria as part of the deal to secure her freedom.

The release of the young woman was secured in recent days after over a week of diplomatic wrangling. She landed at Ben Gurion International Airport on a flight from Russia in the early hours of Friday morning.

On Saturday evening, Channel 12 and Channel 13 published several images of the woman that were blurred, to prevent her from being identified.

The pictures, as well as video clips, taken from her Facebook page, show the woman out and about in glorious natural surroundings.

“No fence will stop me,” she writes in one post cited by Channel 13.

The woman, whose name has not been released for publication, is said to be a 25-year-old from Modiin Illit.

The woman’s crossing into Syria earlier this month was not her first time attempting to cross Israel’s borders. According to Israeli authorities, she had twice tried to enter the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip — once by land and once on a makeshift raft — and once attempted to cross into Jordan. All three times she was captured by either the military or the police.

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Netanyahu was asked by reporters about the vaccines after a foreign report that Israel had agreed to buy $1 million worth of Russian vaccines for Syria.

“I can say that not even one Israeli vaccine dose went to this thing.” Netanyahu said, but did not specifically address the reports that Israel funded a purchase of Russian vaccines.

“We brought the woman home, I’m happy we did it, but beyond that I’m not adding anything because that was what Russia requested,” he said.

Defense Minister Benny Gantz also refused to comment on whether Israel was funding Russian vaccines for Syria.

According to a report (Arabic) in the London-based Asharq Al-Awsat on Saturday, Israel is funding the purchase of Sputnik V doses for Damascus as part of the prisoner exchange deal with the Assad regime. The Ynet news site reported Saturday that Israel’s purchase of the vaccine doses was to the tune of over a million dollars.

Reports of the existence of an unpublished part of the agreement circulated widely in Israeli media, but the details were barred from publication by the military censor. Knesset member Ahmad Tibi has hinted that it relates to vaccination doses; MKs are not bound by the censor.

Asharq Al-Awsat reported Saturday that “informed sources” in Israel confirmed the existence of the “secret clause.”

The Assad regime, for its part, denied the report, saying in a statement released by the state-run SANA news agency Saturday that the publication of these details was part of an “attempt to paint Israel as a humane country.”

A report by Channel 13 News said the woman suffers from “personal problems,” and was being treated gently and not being questioned aggressively over her crossing of the border into Syria earlier this month. The Shin Bet debriefing of the woman was expected to continue all weekend.

On February 2, the Israeli woman crossed the border into Syria in the foothills of Mount Hermon, an area where there is minimal fencing and spotty surveillance camera coverage. It was not immediately clear how the 25-year-old woman, who reportedly speaks fluent Arabic, knew that this location was a good spot to cross. The military said it was investigating the incident.

After crossing into Syria overnight February 2-3, she entered the Druze village of Khader, where she was captured on suspicion of being a spy and handed over to Syrian intelligence. However, according to Channel 13, authorities quickly realized she was not a spy of any kind, but simply a civilian with personal issues.

Damascus told Russia of the matter, and Moscow passed along the information to Israel, prompting negotiations to get her back.

Israel eventually released a security prisoner of Syrian nationality and two shepherds to secure the woman’s freedom.

According to Channel 12 this week, censorship of the secret clause was a direct result of a Russian demand as part of the deal it mediated. The network said Israel had attempted Friday to convince Moscow to remove the shroud of secrecy over the matter, but had been refused.

Reporters for Channels 12 and 13 said Friday they believed the secrecy surrounding the step was leading it to take on far greater public significance than was truly justified.

Knesset member Tibi responded to the controversy from his Twitter account: “Last week, I raised in the Knesset a demand to allow the entrance of thousands of vaccines to Gaza and to provide vaccines to Palestinians in the West Bank from the large inventory that Israel has (which is the responsibility of an occupying force). Did I need to wait for a Jewish wo/man to cross into Gaza so that [Palestinians] could get a vaccine?” Tibi wrote.

On Friday afternoon, Netanyahu spoke with the young woman’s mother, who thanked him for the efforts to free her from captivity, according to a statement from the premier’s office.

Netanyahu gave her his well-wishes and said Israel would always act to return captive citizens.

In addition to the classified aspect of the agreement, Israel initially agreed to concessions regarding two prisoners — Nihal al-Maqt and Dhiyab Qahmuz — both from the Druze community of the Golan Heights, who largely remained loyal to Damascus after the area was captured by Israel in 1967 and effectively annexed in 1981.

As the incident unfolded, Russia had pushed for Israel to scale back its airstrikes on Iran-linked sites in Syria — ongoing attacks that both Damascus and Moscow oppose, the former because its air defenses are regularly targeted during these operations as they fire on Israeli jets and the latter because it interferes with Russian efforts to stabilize and rebuild the war-torn country. But this request appears to have been rejected, as evident by the Syrian reports of Israeli strikes in the country over the past two weeks.

Al-Maqt had been imprisoned for incitement since 2017, and Qahmuz was sentenced to 16 years in prison in 2018 for plotting a terror bombing in coordination with the Lebanese Hezbollah terror group.

Al-Maqt told Syrian Al-Ikhbariya TV on Wednesday afternoon that she had been released from house arrest.

However, Qahmuz, who was due to have his sentence reduced and then be sent to Syria as part of the exchange, refused to be deported.

As a result, his case was removed from the agreement and instead Israel agreed to release two Syrians who crossed the border into Israel this month, ostensibly as they were herding their flocks. The Israel Defense Forces believes that Hezbollah and other Iran-backed groups use local shepherds as scouts to conduct reconnaissance missions along the border with plausible deniability.

The Syrian shepherds were handed over to the Red Cross at the Quneitra crossing into Syria on Thursday, the IDF said, in a move that was ordered by the government. Syria’s SANA news agency confirmed the swap, identifying the “Syrian prisoners” as Mohamed Hussein and Tarek al-Obeidan.

Judah Ari Gross contributed to this report.

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