IDF Soliders along Israel-Syria border. Photo: wiki commons.

The Israeli military has received and treated several injured Syrian refugees who approached the Israel-Syria border in the Golan Heights region, according to an Israeli military spokesman, the Associated Press reported.

“It was on a humanitarian basis,” Israeli Vice Premier Moshe Yaalon told Israel’s Channel 2, according to the AP. “Refugees approached the border, received medical treatment, and we decided to bring them in for treatment in our territory in light of their condition,” he said.

The wounded are being treated at Ziv hospital in the northern Israeli city of Safed.

Hundreds of thousands of refugees have fled into neighboring Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey.

Israel has cautiously monitored the nearly two-year-old civil war in its northeastern neighbor, preferring to remain on the sidelines. But Israel fears that the fall of the Syrian government may lead to terrorist groups—Hezbollah or al-Qaeda affiliated rebels—gaining control of the government’s vast arsenal of sophisticated conventional weapons as well as chemical and biological weapons of mass destruction.

In late January, reports indicated that Israel launched an airstrike against a Syrian convoy containing advanced Russian-made anti-aircraft missiles that were likely destined for the Lebanese terror group Hezbollah.

Israel and the Syrian military have also exchanged fire in the Golan Heights border region.