In a cross-border plea, 75 Syrian journalists on Wednesday asked Israel to help them flee the war-torn country.
The journalists, who are currently located in areas still under rebel control on the Syrian Golan Heights, are asking Israel for only one thing: to save them from the threat of being imprisoned by Syrian President Bashar Assad's prisons.
The asylum request comes as Assad's forces are on the brink of total victory in southern Syria. For years, the journalists covered the bloody civil war from the rebels' side, and now fear the regime will look to exact revenge.
"The path to Turkey is blocked, the border crossing with Jordan was captured and they have no other way, aside from the Israeli border, of escaping a fate of torture and death," said Mordechai Kahana, a Jerusalem-born American-Israeli businessman and founder of Amaliah, a humanitarian aid organization for the people of Syria.
"Your border is the last border we have left to escape. The danger is closer to us than ever," said one of the journalists, who asked to remain anonymous. "We know you are a democratic country."
