Lives Lost: Doctor Chose to Stay, Work in War-Torn Syria

This undated photo provided by his son Kenan Aljasem shows Dr. Adnan Jasem in Albad, Syria. Jasem had every reason to leave war-torn Syria after surviving a bomb blast that broke his legs four years earlier and receiving job offers from abroad. Still, Jasem stayed, committed to treating the people in his homeland. It was no surprise that he would be on the front lines when the first coronavirus cases appeared in northwest Syria this summer. By Sept. 6, 2020, Jasem started feeling ill. Four days later, the 58-year-old was dead. (Kenan Aljasem via AP)
This undated photo provided by his son Kenan Aljasem shows Dr. Adnan Jasem in Albad, Syria. Jasem had every reason to leave war-torn Syria after surviving a bomb blast that broke his legs four years earlier and receiving job offers from abroad. Still, Jasem stayed, committed to treating the people in his homeland. It was no surprise that he would be on the front lines when the first coronavirus cases appeared in northwest Syria this summer. By Sept. 6, 2020, Jasem started feeling ill. Four days later, the 58-year-old was dead. (Kenan Aljasem via AP)
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Lives Lost: Doctor Chose to Stay, Work in War-Torn Syria

This undated photo provided by his son Kenan Aljasem shows Dr. Adnan Jasem in Albad, Syria. Jasem had every reason to leave war-torn Syria after surviving a bomb blast that broke his legs four years earlier and receiving job offers from abroad. Still, Jasem stayed, committed to treating the people in his homeland. It was no surprise that he would be on the front lines when the first coronavirus cases appeared in northwest Syria this summer. By Sept. 6, 2020, Jasem started feeling ill. Four days later, the 58-year-old was dead. (Kenan Aljasem via AP)
This undated photo provided by his son Kenan Aljasem shows Dr. Adnan Jasem in Albad, Syria. Jasem had every reason to leave war-torn Syria after surviving a bomb blast that broke his legs four years earlier and receiving job offers from abroad. Still, Jasem stayed, committed to treating the people in his homeland. It was no surprise that he would be on the front lines when the first coronavirus cases appeared in northwest Syria this summer. By Sept. 6, 2020, Jasem started feeling ill. Four days later, the 58-year-old was dead. (Kenan Aljasem via AP)

Dr. Adnan Jasem had every reason to leave war-torn Syria after surviving a bomb blast that broke his legs four years ago and receiving job offers from abroad.

Still, Jasem stayed, committed to treating the people in his homeland. It was no surprise that he would be on the front lines when the first coronavirus cases appeared in northwest Syria this summer.

By Sept. 6, Jasem started feeling ill. Four days later, the 58-year-old was dead.

"It´s just so tragic," said Jasem's cousin, Dr. Ziad Alissa, who lives in Paris.

Alissa called doctors to get Jasem on a ventilator, but it was too late and he died the next day.

"He cared for so many people and saved so many lives, but we couldn't save him," said Alissa, director of the French chapter of the Union of Medical Care and Relief Organizations, or UOSSM, a group founded by Syrian doctors in 2012 to provide free medical care, equipment and other aid to hospitals and clinics inside Syria.

Jasem is the reason Alissa, who is five years younger, became a doctor.

The two grew up in a farming region. Jasem's father was the first to break from the family's long history of wheat and cotton farming and go to college. He came back home to teach.

His father instilled in Jasem the sense of duty to serve your community. Jasem, too, returned after finishing medical school in Damascus, specializing in anesthesia.

He and his wife, a gynecologist, had four children and worked as local doctors in eastern Syria´s Deir ez-Zour region, near the border with Iraq.

Syria's civil war erupted after an Arab Spring-inspired uprising, which began with peaceful protests in 2011 and escalated into an armed rebellion following a government crackdown.

Their lives were constantly under threat: As doctors, they were seen with suspicion every time a new group - from government forces to ISIS fighters - took control of an area.

In the past year alone, 85 medical facilities in northern Syria have been attacked, according to UOSSM.

Medical equipment was regularly moved to hospital basements to protect it from bombings. With the sound of planes conducting airstrikes overhead, briefly hiding in a safe place was a routine part of Jasem's workday. Sometimes he treated fellow doctors who were injured in the blasts.

Syria's nine-year war has killed about a half-million people, wounded more than a million and forced about 5.6 million to flee as refugees, mostly to neighboring countries. Another 6 million of Syria´s prewar population of 23 million are internally displaced.

Jasem and his family were uprooted several times because of the violence, including when a bomb blast destroyed his home four years ago as he huddled with his wife and children in the basement. Both his legs were broken and he underwent surgeries to walk again.

Jasem received job offers from doctors who had left the country, inviting him to join them in Turkey and raise his family there.

His cousin said Jasem's response was always the same: "If there are no doctors here, who was going to help the people?"

Syria's health care system was already struggling when the first coronavirus cases appeared. Jasem had been working since 2017 in the intensive care unit at the hospital in al-Bab, a Turkish-controlled zone in northwestern Syria. Turkey supports opposition fighters battling Syrian President Bashar Assad.

Jasem did his best to teach his co-workers and patients how to protect themselves against the virus, his cousin said, but there was a shortage of masks, gloves, gowns, disinfectant, even soap.

When Jasem came homesick, he told his family not to worry, that he would rest and recover while quarantining. He figured he had survived so much already.

But within days, he struggled to breathe and ended up in the same intensive care unit where he had treated numerous patients. He spent only one night there before he died.

"During this war, thousands of doctors have left because they couldn´t live there, couldn´t tolerate the life there," Alissa said. "He did it despite everything - despite the danger, the fear, the attacks, the bombings. He knew the people needed him. That is what made him an extraordinary human being. Those doctors are very few."

Jasem dreamed of someday opening a hospital in Syria that would offer free medical services to everyone. His family hopes to make that dream a reality in his honor.

Jasem´s wife, Dr. Ruba Alsayed, plans to keep working as a doctor in Syria, raising their 14-year-old son on her own. Their 18-year-old son wants to be a doctor as well. He is considering studying medicine in Europe but plans to return to his homeland to continue his father´s work.

Jasem inspired so many, said Alissa, who returns regularly to Syria to volunteer as a doctor.

"He loved his country, loved his home," Alissa said. "Above all, he loved to help his people."



How Much Aid is Getting into Gaza?

Displaced Palestinians queue to receive food rations in northern Gaza, where a blistering Israeli assault is underway - AFP
Displaced Palestinians queue to receive food rations in northern Gaza, where a blistering Israeli assault is underway - AFP
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How Much Aid is Getting into Gaza?

Displaced Palestinians queue to receive food rations in northern Gaza, where a blistering Israeli assault is underway - AFP
Displaced Palestinians queue to receive food rations in northern Gaza, where a blistering Israeli assault is underway - AFP

Israel has announced steps to boost aid deliveries to Gaza, but UN figures show a huge drop in supplies getting through to the war-battered territory and humanitarian workers doubt much is reaching those who need it most.

Aid workers and experts told AFP that there were still many obstacles to getting desperately needed supplies to Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip's north, where intense Israeli military operations since early October have left hundreds dead.

Not only are there disputes over the actual volume of aid being allowed in, but agencies are often unable to reach people under constant bombardment, meaning it does not always make it where the dire humanitarian needs are greatest.

- How does aid enter Gaza? -

Most trucks carrying humanitarian supplies enter through the Kerem Shalom crossing on the border between Israel and the southern Gaza Strip.

The shipments are inspected by the Israeli military for security reasons, a process cited by humanitarian groups as the main factor behind the slow delivery of aid.

Israel, which imposed a siege on the Hamas-ruled territory in the early stages of the war last year, often blames the inability of relief organizations to handle and distribute large quantities of aid.

Once the aid enters Gaza, deliveries are subject to coordination with COGAT, an Israeli defence ministry agency that oversees civilian affairs in the Palestinian territories.

Many aid groups regularly report difficulties in communicating and coordinating with COGAT.

The distribution of aid is further complicated by shortages of fuel for trucks, war-damaged roads and looting, as well as fighting in densely populated areas and the repeated displacement of much of Gaza's 2.4 million people.

Several humanitarian officials told AFP on condition of anonymity that almost half of the aid that enters Gaza is being looted, especially basic supplies.

According to the United Nations, 396 trucks have entered Gaza so far in October, far below previous months.

In September 3,003 trucks got through, following 3,096 in August and 4,681 in July, according to UN figures which Israel's COGAT regularly disputes.

Some foreign countries have opted for dropping aid from the air. COGAT said 81 packages were parachuted into the narrow coastal territory on Saturday.

But this effort as well as a short-lived maritime aid corridor have not been able to meet the increasing needs of Gazans after more than a year of war.

- What has Israel said? -

A joint statement issued Tuesday by the military and COGAT said Israel "remains committed to facilitating humanitarian aid".

It came as the United States, Israel's top arms provider, has warned it may suspend some of its military assistance if Israel does not quickly improve humanitarian access to Gaza.

The Israeli statement highlighted patient transfers between hospitals in Gaza and the delivery of 68,650 litres of fuel to medical facilities across the territory -- many of which have been put out of service during the war.

The military has also announced that 30 World Food Program trucks were recently able to bring flour directly to northern Gaza, not via the southern Kerem Shalom crossing.

Tania Hary, head of Israeli rights group Gisha which monitors access into Gaza, said that "Israel has come under (diplomatic) pressure to allow more aid in, especially to the north".

She told AFP that only a ceasefire would enable humanitarian operations on the required scale.

"But short of that, genuine action and cooperation by the Israeli authorities could ensure the safe and free movement of aid," Hary said, but cautioned that she had seen no "genuine will" from the Israeli authorities throughout the war.

- What's the impact on the ground? -

Juliette Touma, spokeswoman for the UN agency for Palestinian refugees UNRWA, said there has been "no major change".

"What has come in is very, very little and is by far not enough in the face of the needs," Touma told AFP.

A displaced resident of the northern Jabalia area, a focus of the recent fighting, said the area "is being wiped out".

"If we don't die from the bombing and gunfire, we will die of hunger," said 42-year-old Umm Firas Shamiyah, demanding aid be sent to the north.

Sarah Davies, spokeswoman for the International Committee of the Red Cross, said that even if aid deliveries are boosted, the fighting makes it "very difficult to effectively distribute things to all those who need it".

A humanitarian worker whose group has a large presence on the ground said that some crucial items are banned by Israel.

"We're having great difficulty bringing in oxygen concentrates, generators and reconstruction equipment because the Israeli authorities consider them to be dual-purpose items that have both military and medical uses," he said.

"Some clinics are even running out of paracetamol," the common painkiller, the aid worker added.

"October has been catastrophic."