IN THE NICK OF TIME

Israel Evacuates Hundreds of Syria’s White Helmets

The Israeli military says it rescued the civil defense workers and their families “due to an immediate threat to their lives.”

Hundreds of Syrian rescue workers known as the White Helmets have been evacuated from southwest Syria as government forces are advancing in the area. Jordan on Sunday said it had allowed the entry and passage of 800 members of the group and their relatives and had agreed to provide temporary asylum before they are resettled in the West. The Israeli military reportedly carried out the evacuation, saying it had completed “a humanitarian effort to rescue members of a Syrian civil organization and their families...due to an immediate threat to their lives.” Britain, Germany, and Canada had helped to devise the rescue operation amid fears Syrian President Bashar Assad’s forces would execute members of the group, which is credited with saving thousands of lives in the country’s long-running civil war but has been vilified by the Syrian government. The aid workers will remain at a “closed” location until they are resettled in Britain, Germany, or Canada, all of which have already agreed to take them in.