Assad regiem’s forces have bombed the last remaining civilian hospital in the besieged Damascus suburb of Daraya, according to activists, who say an incendiary weapon similar to napalm was used.
Assad regime forces dropped the bombs on the hospital shortly after midnight on Friday morning, according to activists and the Britain-based Syrian Network for Human Rights.
“The hospital … which was providing a humanitarian service to the civilians in the city is being targeted by internationally banned weapons. Everyone is standing by silently and watching,” said one doctor from Darayya in a video purported to have been shot outside the hospital shortly after it was hit.
This video, published on the local Darayya council’s YouTube page, is said to show the immediate aftermath of the attack on the hospital.
The hospital was the only medical facility available to 8,000 civilians in the besieged suburb, which was hit with incendiary bombs for three straight days earlier this week, according to the local council.
Last week, Assad regime and Russians used the napalm cylinder bombs in attacking residential areas.
“The city is being burned, 20 napalm cylinder bombs were dropped on the afflicted city,” an activist said.
“Assad regime troops have become very close to residential buildings where there are about 9000 civilians in The Al-Hadeed Sekkeh (The Railway) area,” an activist from Darayya said.
Darayya has been under siege since 2012, and bombed everyday by Assad regime. It is called by Syrian activists “The capital of barrel bombs.”
Incendiary weapons start fires and cause horrific burns much like those inflicted by the napalm dropped from US planes during the Vietnam War.
Earlier this week, the New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) accused Syrian government forces and their Russian allies of repeatedly using incendiary weapons against civilians in rebel-held parts of northern Syria.
“Incendiary weapons have been used at least 18 times over the past six weeks, including attacks on the opposition-held areas in the cities of Aleppo and Idlib on August 7, 2016,” the rights group said in a report published on Tuesday.
“Countries meeting at the Convention on Conventional Weapons in Geneva on August 29 should condemn the use of air-dropped incendiary weapons … and press Syria and Russia to immediately stop using incendiary weapons in civilian areas,” HRW said.
Incendiary weapons are not entirely banned. While there is an international agreement forbidding their use in areas with a heavy civilian presence, it has only been signed by 113 countries. Russia has signed up to the agreement, known as Protocol III of the Convention of Conventional Weapons, but Syria has not.
