PHOTO: Damage in the Hope Hospital in Millis in Idlib Province, hit by Russian-regime bombing on August 6

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    UPDATE 1115 GMT: Russian and regime aircraft have continued attacks on civilian areas in Aleppo Province this morning.

    Reported strikes include bombing of a market in the village of Owaija, killing at least six people and wounding 10.

    OWAIJA MARKET BOMBING 08-16

    An attack on a children’s hospital in Kafr Hamra killed two staff, including a nurse. Another ten people were pulled alive from the rubble.

    ALEPPO 12-08-16

    (Map by Artur Rosinski of NewsMap)

    The casualties from the latest attacks on medical facilities and personnel include five White Helmets rescuers who died yesterday.

    One of the slain, Khaled Harah, recovered a live baby from the rubble of a building in Aleppo’s Sukkari neighborhood after a 16-hour rescue effort. He was later invited to the UN Security Council to testify about the airstrikes.

    ORIGINAL ENTRY: Human Rights Watch has published the latest report on the systematic bombing of Syria’s medical facilities by Russia and the Assad regime, calling on the UN to conduct an independent inquiry into the attacks.

    HRW documented six assaults over the last two weeks, killing 17 civilians, in Idlib and Aleppo Provinces in northwest Syria. The strikes destroyed or damaged the facilities, knocking them out of service.

    The strikes were part of 43 attacks in July, the largest monthly total since Russia’s aerial intervention last September. The Russian-regime campaign has destroyed scores of hospitals, clinics, blood banks, and drugs warehouses. In parts of opposition-held Syria, there is no longer a fully-functioning hospital or clinic, leaving hundreds of thousands of people without adequate medical care. Opposition-held areas of Aleppo city, with 250,000 to 400,000 ressidents, now have only three functioning hospitals. There is only one hospital still offering obstetric services.

    Five of the six attacks examined by HRW were on July 23 in Aleppo city. Four hospitals and a blood bank were hit.

    The head of al-Zahra’ Hospital, specializing in gynecological and maternity care, said:

    The rocket fell right on top of the building. I can’t describe the feeling when it hit – I thought the whole building was going to collapse on our heads. It was chaos.

    HRW also documented last Saturday’s airstrikes on the Hope Hospital in the town of Millis in Idlib Province, where at least nine patients and four staff were killed.

    Dr. Hatem Abu Yazen, the head of the al-Hakim Children’s Hospital in Aleppo city, spoke of the attacks that killed four newborns in the intensive care unit:

    The missile fell seven to eight meters away from the hospital in the residential building nearby. The impact of the strike destroyed the hospital’s windows, doors, and a corrugated ceiling. It also destroyed three incubators, and some hospital equipment was damaged. Shrapnel flew into the hospital and tore the wire leading to the oxygen tank of Mohamad Shebli, a two-day-old baby, who died instantly. The smoke and dust also caused by the strike caused the death of three other ICU babies – Rahaf Mohamed, 3 days old, Taha Sabah, 4 days old, and Hassan Makhzoum, 3 days old.

    Dr. Ahmad Yaseen, the head of al-Bayan hospital, a general surgery facility, testified:

    The missile fell in the street just 10 meters outside the hospital and we suffered a huge amount of damage to the hospital walls and doors and windows and infrastructure in general….

    I was in the hospital at the time of the strike and all I heard was a plane circling in the sky and within seconds we were all thrown to the floor along with a huge explosion and the sounds of breaking glass and smoke and dust everywhere and women and neighbors screaming. We are in a very residential area and there are no headquarters of any security or military anywhere close by.

    Babies kept in emergency incubators during the attacks:

    BABIES EMERGENCY INCUBATORS ALEPPO 07-16

    Since the beginning of the Syrian conflict in March 2011, 750 medical personnel have been killed — 698 of them by regime or Russian attacks — according to Physicians for Human Rights.

    In a resolution in May, the UN Security Council condemned “abuses committed against medical personnel and humanitarian personnel exclusively engaged in medical duties, their means of transport and equipment, as well as hospitals and other medical facilities in armed conflict”. The Security Council urged member countries to protect “the wounded and sick, medical personnel and humanitarian personnel exclusively engaged in medical duties, their means of transport and equipment, as well as hospitals and other medical facilities in armed conflict, and, where appropriate, take action against those responsible in accordance with domestic and international law, with a view to reinforcing preventive measures, ensuring accountability and addressing the grievances of victims”.

    However, the Security Council and its members — one of whom is Russia — have taken no action to try and halt the airstrikes.

    A cave hospital constructed for some protection from attacks:

    Claim: ISIS Abducts 2,000 Civilians as Kurdish-Led Force Takes Manbij

    The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces claim that the Islamic State has abducted 2,000 civilians as it retreated from the city of Manbij, its central position in Aleppo Province.

    SDF officials said that they completed the capture of Manbij after a three-month offensive, but that ISIS took residents as they retreated.

    Iran: Assad Twice Refused Our Offers for Asylum

    Iran has said that President Assad twice refused Tehran’s offers of asylum for him and his family.

    Hossein Amir Abdollahian, former Deputy Foreign Minister and now advisor to the Speaker of Parliament, said Assad refused the offers. The President said he is “responsible for overseeing and dealing with the families of the martyrs of the war against terrorists”.

    In April, Iran’s Intelligence Minister Mahmoud Alavi first said that the offer had been extended by General Qassem Soleimani, the head of the elite Quds Force of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards. Alavi said Assad responded that “his family was like any other Syrian family” and would remain in Damascus.

    Activists: Conjoined Twins Near Damascus Urgently Need Medical Evacuation

    Activists report that conjoined twin boys, born recently in the East Ghouta area near Damascus, urgently need evacuation for medical treatment.

    Now see Urgent Treatment Needed for Conjoined Twins Near Damascus

    Report: Russia Severely Damages Only Church in Idlib City

    A Russian missile has reportedly caused severe damage to Idlib city’s only church.

    The airstrike on Wednesday collapsed the outside wall of the 19th-century Church of the Virgin Mary, and destroying the marble wall of icons and religious paintings in the interior.

    Before the conflict, about 2,000 Syrian Christians attended the church, which was built in 1886.

    “[Now] there are only one or two elderly Christian families left,” according to George Michel Jabbour, a former Christian Idlib resident.

    DAMAGED IDLIB CHURCH

    Reports: Russian Airstrikes Kill Dozens in Raqqa

    Activists claim that Russian airstrikes have killed dozens of civilians in the Islamic State’s central position of Raqqa in northern Syria.

    The pro-opposition Local Coordination Committees documented 37 deaths on Thursday in or near the city, held by the ISIS since autumn 2013.

    The attacks cut the city’s water supply by destroying a pumping station in a nearby village, according to the group Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently and the ISIS-linked news agency Amaq.

    The Russian Defense Ministry claimed that its warplanes hit a “chemical weapons factory”, an arms depot, and a training camp.

    RAQQA 11-08-16

    (Map by Artur Rosinski of NewsMap)

    The LCC documented 125 deaths across Syria on Thursday, including 42 in Aleppo Province amid both Russian-regime attacks on Aleppo city and ISIS sniper fire as it tries to hold back a Kurdish-led offensive on the city of Manbij.