Nov 4, 2015

On targeting hospitals in Syria

A truck bomb explodes at the National Hospital in Jisr al-Shughur, Syria, after a daytime attack by anti-government rebels on May 10 2015.

.

The Wall Will Fall, a blog published by Vanessa Beeley about life in the Gaza strip, publishes Voice from Aleppo: Targeting hospitals, look who’s talking!:

[…] My first and short comment on blaming the Russians of targeting opposition hospitals is: Look Who’s Talking!

Since the beginning of the crisis, or let’s say, since the beginning of the organized armed gangs like the FSA, An-Nusra Front, and Da’esh, they were competing with each other who can demolish more hospitals and schools than the other.

Literally hundreds of hospitals have been destroyed in Syria by suicide bombers driving huge vans full with explosives into them, and they recorded their ‘achievements’ and published their videos on YouTube and Aljazeera-like channels with pride.

No one talked about the doctors, nurses, and patients who had been buried alive under the wreckage of these hospitals. Maybe once or couple of times, Ban Ki Mon was worried or condemned such acts, but that’s it, nothing more than few words on UN that everyone forget the next day, and go back to blame the ‘regime of killing its people’.

The terrorists’ excuses in bombing these hospitals are ridiculous. They would say that this hospital is full of ‘shabbeeha’ (armed groups that are pro-Syrian government and army); full of ‘Alawites; full of ‘Infidels’; full of Assad gangs…….Therefore, it’s ok to bomb them and purify the land from their “dirt and filth”!

Other mainstream media might be much better in selling their lies and excuses, by saying that the SAA was using these schools and hospitals as shields to fight and snipe from, so we had no other choice but to destroy it to protect our pregnant women and innocent children!

I don’t know if Russians did target any terrorist field hospitals and I know that in many of their areas there could be civilians who are either forced to stay and can’t leave, or they share the faith and mentality of the terrorists. But I’m sure that they are the a minority in those areas, because most of them have already fled these areas to the government controlled areas. […]

Meanwhile, the International Business Times reports:

[…] After reports throughout the last month that Russian airstrikes have hit multiple Syrian hospitals, the Russian Defense Ministry is denying the existence of most of the hospitals, according to Russian state-owned Sputnik News. Russian officials said Monday that the reports by Western media of bombed hospitals were made “without any proof.”

“I would like to remind you that a week ago, several leading Western media outlets citing the U.S.-based Syrian American Medical Society accused us of allegedly bombing hospitals in al-Ees, al-Hader, Khan Tuman, Sarmin, Latamna and al-Zirba,” Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov told reporters. “We investigated this information. It turned out, in fact, that there is a hospital only in the settlement of Sarmin. There are no hospitals in al-Ees, al-Hader, Khan Tuman, Latamna and al-Zirba, and, consequently, there are no healthcare workers,” he added.

The Russian Defense Ministry provided Russian news outlets with aerial photos of what it said was the completely intact hospital in Sarmin, Syria, which was reportedly bombed last Tuesday. The attack killed at least 12 people, according to the Guardian, which cited the hospital’s director as saying the facility would not longer be able to serve patients.

When the attack occurred last week, at least four hospitals had been reportedly bombed since late September when Russia began launching attacks in Syria ostensibly aimed at Islamic State group fighters. Sputnik News reported Saturday that medical staff from the group Medecins Sans Frontieres, also known as Doctors Without Borders, did not know who was responsible for bombings at its hospitals. […]