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Dr. Hamzeh: Staying in Aleppo When Every Other Doctor Had Left
Confirmed2 chapters
Muhammad Wael Hamzeh was among the handful of doctors who refused to leave East Aleppo during its 2016 siege. He treated children under bombardment. He was killed in an airstrike on a hospital. His story represents the systematic destruction of Aleppo's medical infrastructure and the deliberate targeting of those who stayed to care for the wounded.
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Chapter 01custom01 / 02
The Siege of East Aleppo and the Last Doctors: 2012–2016
Aleppo, Syria's largest city and its commercial capital, became one of the most contested and devastated battlegrounds of the Syrian war. Opposition forces held East Aleppo from 2012, while government forces controlled the west. For years, the city was divided, besieged, and battered.
By 2016, the siege of East Aleppo had entered its final and most brutal phase. Russian and Syrian government air forces conducted relentless bombing campaigns on residential areas, hospitals, and infrastructure. The UN and multiple humanitarian organizations documented repeated strikes on medical facilities — which, under international humanitarian law, should be protected.
As conditions deteriorated, most international medical staff and many Syrian doctors left. Those who stayed — a group of perhaps 30 doctors covering a population of hundreds of thousands — became known as 'the last doctors.' They worked in hospital basements, in structures reinforced against blasts, treating wounds, delivering babies, performing surgeries with depleted supplies.
Dr. Muhammad Wael Hamzeh was a pediatrician who had stayed. He worked primarily at M10 (Al-Razi Hospital) and the Al-Quds hospital network. These facilities were struck repeatedly.
In April 2016, Al-Quds Hospital was struck in an airstrike that killed Dr. Muhammad Waseem Moaz — one of the city's last pediatricians at that point — along with dozens of patients and staff. Hamzeh continued to work. By November 2016, East Aleppo was in the final weeks of its existence as opposition-held territory. Food was running out. Medical supplies were exhausted. Bombing was incessant. The 'last doctors' continued to treat what they could.
By 2016, the siege of East Aleppo had entered its final and most brutal phase. Russian and Syrian government air forces conducted relentless bombing campaigns on residential areas, hospitals, and infrastructure. The UN and multiple humanitarian organizations documented repeated strikes on medical facilities — which, under international humanitarian law, should be protected.
As conditions deteriorated, most international medical staff and many Syrian doctors left. Those who stayed — a group of perhaps 30 doctors covering a population of hundreds of thousands — became known as 'the last doctors.' They worked in hospital basements, in structures reinforced against blasts, treating wounds, delivering babies, performing surgeries with depleted supplies.
Dr. Muhammad Wael Hamzeh was a pediatrician who had stayed. He worked primarily at M10 (Al-Razi Hospital) and the Al-Quds hospital network. These facilities were struck repeatedly.
In April 2016, Al-Quds Hospital was struck in an airstrike that killed Dr. Muhammad Waseem Moaz — one of the city's last pediatricians at that point — along with dozens of patients and staff. Hamzeh continued to work. By November 2016, East Aleppo was in the final weeks of its existence as opposition-held territory. Food was running out. Medical supplies were exhausted. Bombing was incessant. The 'last doctors' continued to treat what they could.
Confirmed(85%)Sensitivity: medium
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Chapter 02custom02 / 02
November 18, 2016: The Airstrike
On November 18, 2016, an airstrike hit the M10 hospital in East Aleppo. Dr. Muhammad Wael Hamzeh was killed in the strike. He was one of several medical workers killed in hospital strikes in Aleppo in 2016.
The Syrian American Medical Society (SAMS), which supported medical operations in Aleppo, documented his death and those of other doctors and nurses killed in the siege. By the end of 2016, SAMS reported that Syria had become the most dangerous country in the world for medical workers — 95% of those killed were killed by Syrian government or Russian forces.
The UN Commission of Inquiry on Syria concluded that the pattern of strikes on hospitals and medical facilities in Aleppo was not accidental — the facilities were registered with the UN deconfliction mechanism, their coordinates transmitted to all parties, and yet they were struck repeatedly. The Commission found this constituted a war crime.
East Aleppo fell to government forces on December 22, 2016. The evacuation that followed — tens of thousands of civilians and fighters bused out to Idlib — marked the end of the opposition's control of Aleppo. The doctors who had survived gathered their remaining supplies and left a city they had refused to abandon for years.
Dr. Hamzeh did not make it to the evacuation.
The Syrian American Medical Society (SAMS), which supported medical operations in Aleppo, documented his death and those of other doctors and nurses killed in the siege. By the end of 2016, SAMS reported that Syria had become the most dangerous country in the world for medical workers — 95% of those killed were killed by Syrian government or Russian forces.
The UN Commission of Inquiry on Syria concluded that the pattern of strikes on hospitals and medical facilities in Aleppo was not accidental — the facilities were registered with the UN deconfliction mechanism, their coordinates transmitted to all parties, and yet they were struck repeatedly. The Commission found this constituted a war crime.
East Aleppo fell to government forces on December 22, 2016. The evacuation that followed — tens of thousands of civilians and fighters bused out to Idlib — marked the end of the opposition's control of Aleppo. The doctors who had survived gathered their remaining supplies and left a city they had refused to abandon for years.
Dr. Hamzeh did not make it to the evacuation.
Confirmed(85%)Sensitivity: medium
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