wade said:
Is the word "Zionist" offensive?gop_jeff said:
dilloduck said:
Maybe he IS referring to zionists-----you weren't tempted to say he was anti-semitic were you?gop_jeff said:
wade said:
gop_jeff said:
drac said:
wade said:
Doctors and nurses at a pediatric hospital in eastern Aleppo scrambled Friday to evacuate babies in incubators to safety from underground shelters after the facility in the besieged Syrian city was bombed for the second time this week. Medics and aid workers also reported a suspected attack involving toxic gas in a district on the western edge of the rebel-held area. At least 12 people, including children, were treated for breathing difficulties, said Adham Sahloul of the Syrian American Medical Society, which supports health facilities in Aleppo.
Claims of toxic gas attacks are common in Syria, and reports by international inspectors have held the government responsible for using chemicals in attacks on civilians, which Damascus denies. Airstrikes also hit a village in rural areas Aleppo province, killing seven members of a family, including four children, opposition activists said. Friday was the fourth day of renewed assaults by Syrian warplanes on eastern Aleppo districts, a rebel-held enclave of 275,000 people. The onslaught began Tuesday, when Syria's ally Russia announced its own offensive on the northern rebel-controlled Idlib province and Homs province in central Syria. Since then, more than 100 people have been killed across northern Syria.
Smoke rising and fires burning after airstrikes hit the Al-Shaar neighborhood of Aleppo, Syria
Friday's airstrikes in Aleppo hit a complex of four hospitals that had been attacked two days earlier. The latest strikes forced the pediatric hospital and a neighboring facility to stop operating. "Now it is being bombed. ... I am sorry. ... I have to go to transfer the children," the head of the pediatric hospital wrote in a text message to The Associated Press. The doctor identified himself only by his first name of Hatem because he fears for reprisals against his family.
The incubators already had been moved underground for safety, but with bombs falling all around the facility, hospital workers had to rush them to a safer place despite the danger. Hatem rushed 14 babies in incubators to another facility a 10-minute drive away while airstrikes continued, he said in a later message. "As we drove out with the ambulance, warplanes were firing and artillery were shelling," he wrote. "But thank God we were not hurt." Some of the survivors of the suspected gas attack were taken to the children's hospital.
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US National Security Adviser Susan Rice said the US condemned “in the strongest terms” the latest airstrikes against hospitals and urged Russia, an ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, to take steps to halt the violence. Intense airstrikes have battered the eastern part of the city since Tuesday last week, when the Syrian army and its allies resumed operations after a pause lasting weeks. They launched ground attacks against insurgent positions on Friday. The observatory said 48 people, including at least five children, had been killed in eastern Aleppo on Saturday by dozens of airstrikes and barrel bombs and dozens of artillery rounds. That brings the number of people killed by the increased bombardment of Aleppo and the surrounding countryside over the past five days to about 180, including 97 in the city’s besieged eastern sector, the observatory added.
Warplanes, artillery and helicopters continued bombarding eastern Aleppo on Saturday, hitting many of its densely populated residential districts, the observatory said. There were intense clashes in the Bustan al-Basha district, it added. “This destruction of infrastructure essential to life leaves the besieged, resolute people, including all children and elderly men and women, without any health facilities offering life-saving treatment ... leaving them to die,” Aleppo’s health directorate said in a statement sent to reporters late on Friday by an opposition official.
A damaged Civil Defence ambulance is pictured on Saturday in a rebel-held area of Aleppo, Syria.
Elizabeth Hoff, who is the WHO representative in Syria, on Saturday said that a UN-led group of aid agencies based over the border in Turkey “confirmed today that all hospitals in eastern Aleppo are out of service.” The observatory said some hospitals were still operating in besieged parts of Aleppo, but said many residents were frightened to use them because of the heavy shelling. Medical sources, residents and rebels in eastern Aleppo say hospitals have been damaged by airstrikes and helicopter barrel bombs in recent days, including direct hits on the buildings. “The United States again joins our partners ... in demanding the immediate cessation of these bombardments and calling on Russia to immediately de-escalate violence and facilitate humanitarian aid and access for the Syrian people,” Rice said in a statement.
However, with the US awaiting the inauguration in late January of US president-elect Donald Trump, who has been critical of Washington’s Syria policy without laying out detailed plans himself, diplomatic efforts appear stalled. UN and Arab League Envoy to Syria Staffan De Mistura was yesterday expected to meet Syrian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates Walid al-Muallem in Damascus after recent talks in Turkey and Iran, another diplomat said. “He will push on Aleppo, perhaps on a ceasefire, but on the political file there won’t be anything until [UN secretary-general-designate Antonio] Guterres is in office,” the diplomat said.
Eastern Aleppo hospitals unusable: officials - Taipei Times
In all, 10 people were killed and 59 wounded in the attack on the Furqan neighborhood. A medical source told the Syrian Arab News Agency that eight students between 7 and 12 years old were killed, another 27 students injured and a female teacher had a leg amputated. Also, Al Jazeera reported a family of six in eastern Aleppo was killed. Two medics said the al-Baytounji family -- four children and a married couple -- died from the barrel bomb laced with chlorine gas in the Sakhour district at about midnight. Damascus has denied use of the gas, which is forbidden by the international Chemical Weapons Convention.
SANA also said shells were fired on the Faculty of Law and the neighborhoods of al-Sabil, al-Mogambo, al-Furqan and al-Midan, killing two persons and injuring 32 others in west Aleppo. The opposition now holds the eastern part of the city. Syria's military and Russia's air force had stopped bombarding eastern Aleppo, except for the front-lines, for three weeks, but recommenced strikes Tuesday. Aleppo Gov. Hussein Diab inspected al-Furqan School for basic education and urged for it to be repaired immediately. He also visited those injured in the attacks at the University Hospital, stressing the necessity of providing medical services.
About 240 people have been killed in east Aleppo and the rebel-held countryside to the west of the city since Tuesday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. On Sunday, the United Nations' Syria envoy, Staffan de Mistura, warned time was "running out" for eastern Aleppo. He arrived in Damascus for talks. Foreign Minister Walid al-Moalem said de Mistura suggested an autonomous administration in eastern Aleppo, but Damascus completely rejected the idea. An elected city council oversees services there. Moalem said the civilians of eastern Aleppo were held hostage in this controlled distribution of food.
Eight children killed in rocket launch at school in Aleppo
