"THE ENEMY OF US ALL":

"We're doing everything we can to save their lives, to stabilize them and evacuate them to hospital," said Captain Aviad Camisa, deputy chief medical officer of the Golan brigade.

The medics lift the wounded men onto an army ambulance which slowly drives off down a dirt road.

"Some of the stories stir your emotions. When children come, as a father, it touches me personally," Camisa said.

Millions have fled and hundreds of thousands have been killed in Syria's conflict, which shows only fitful signs of being resolved.

The trail to Israel is full of risks.

Those who spoke to Reuters at Ziv medical Center in Safed, northern Israel, did so freely but asked not to be identified by name or have their faces photographed or filmed for fear of retribution back home.

The Israeli army helped facilitate access to the hospital, perhaps concerned to counter the negative image it has in most of the Arab world.

One man, his legs pierced by shrapnel, survived a bomb attack in his village in which 23 people were killed.

"In the past we used to know Israel as our enemy. That's what the regime used to tell us," he said. "When we came to Israel we changed our minds, there is no enmity between us.

"In the end we discovered that our regime is the enemy of us all," he said, referring to Syrian president Bashar al-Assad.

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