Sec. 1226. Sense of Congress condemning continuing attacks on medical facilities in Syria
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Congress finds the following: Attacks intentionally targeting civilians, medical personnel, or medical facilities constitute grave violations of international humanitarian law. In Syria, schools, markets, and hospitals are routinely destroyed in attacks and medical providers routinely targeted for attacks. Physicians for Human Rights has documented at least 350 airstrikes against medical facilities and the deaths of over 700 medical personnel in Syria since 2011. So far in May 2016, there have been at least six attacks on medical facilities in the city of Aleppo alone in less than a week killing dozens, including the last pediatrician still working in Aleppo.
These attacks seriously hinder access to medical care and are compounded by ongoing efforts by the Syrian regime to block or limit humanitarian aid to Syrians. Secretary of State John Kerry has condemned these attacks arguing, there is no justification for this horrific violence that targets civilians or medical facilities or first responders no matter who it is, whether it’s a member of the opposition retaliating or the regime in its brutality against the civilians which has continued for five years. .
It is the sense of Congress that— the Department of Defense and all other appropriate United States Government agencies should continue to strongly condemn and call for an immediate end to attacks on medical facilities and medical providers in Syria and work to ensure that doctors can do their job and provide care to the those in need; humanitarian crises in Syria and Iraq, exacerbated by targeted attacks on medical facilities, personnel, and schools, threaten the achievement of United States goals in the region, such as destroying and dismantling the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant
(ISIL)and peace and stability in the region, including Syria; the United States and international community should do more to support medical professionals and medical nonprofit organizations working in Syria, at great risk to their personal well-being, to treat the ill and infirm and ensure some level of medical care for Syrians; and the Department of Defense is strongly encouraged to support, where appropriate, other appropriate United States Government agencies and entities engaged in meeting urgent and increasing humanitarian and medical needs in Syria, especially in areas where medical facilities and providers have been targeted by the Syrian regime, ISIL, or Al-Qaeda.