Israel has transferred tons of aid to thousands of refugees escaping cities in southwestern Syria that have been bombed by the Assad regime and its Russian allies in recent weeks, Ynet reported Friday.

Overnight, the IDF transferred about 300 tents, 15 tons of food, 15 tons of baby food, 30 tons of clothes, and three pallets of medical equipment and medicines to four different points inside Syria, near the border with Israel, to the thousands of internal refugees who fled the intense regime bombings in the Deraa region.

According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, some 120,000 people have fled the region with tens of thousands escaping to Syria’s border with Jordan and thousands of others heading to the border with Israel.

The aid packages were transferred to refugee camps near the border with Israel that lack basic necessities, including food, water and electricity.

The aid delivered to the Syrian refugees is part of Israel’s Good Neighbor program, through which it has been sending aid directly into nearby Syrian villages and treating Syrians in Israeli hospitals over the past several years. However, Israeli officials have affirmed that they do not intend to allow the refugees to escape into Israel.

The regime offensive in the area takes place in a “de-escalation zone” that was agreed to last year between Russia, the United States, and Jordan. Despite U.S. guarantees to enforce the status quo in the area, administration officials have “steadily walked back on warnings of American retaliation for violations,” the Associated Press reported earlier this week.

An article last month in Foreign Policy credited “Good Neighbor” with fostering a measure of stability in southwestern Syria. In the article, Shadi Martini and Nicholas Heras observed that the “unprecedented” cooperation between Israel and the Syrian NGOs in the area has served “as a lifeline for the civilian population in this region of the country and empowers NGOs and civic organizations.”

[Photo: IDF Spokesperson’s Unit ]