A/HRC/22/59 Annex XII [English only] Specifically protected persons and objectsa 1. Escalating violence in densely populated urban areas has increasingly affected persons and objects specifically protected under customary and treaty laws of armed conflict. In some incidents, protected persons and objects appear to have been deliberately targeted. 2. First-hand accounts from victims and eyewitnesses indicate that hospitals and medical personnel, journalists and cultural property, are at times treated as military objectives by both sides to the conflict. Satellite imagery examined shows the extensive destruction of hospitals in densely populated urban areas, as well as munitions craters, barricades, rubble, fortifications and debris in areas around hospitals in Damascus, Aleppo, and Homs cities. I. Medical personnel and objects A. Government forces and affiliated militia Aleppo governorate 3. State hospitals, field hospitals and medical units in Aleppo have come under attack. 4. A field hospital in Tal Rifaat was bombarded twice, on 27 July and 19 August. A volunteer who had been working at the hospital at the time said that most patients were civilians. 5. On 29 July, the Syrian army shelled a field hospital run by the FSA in a school building in Al-Sheikh Najar. The field hospital was shelled twice in succession. The first shell hit the field hospital, damaging the building and medical infrastructure. The second shell killed approximately 15 civilians fleeing from the field hospital. 6. Dar Al-Shifa hospital has been subject to regular shelling and aerial bombardment attacks throughout the reporting period. On 12 August, Dar Al-Shifa hospital was hit by nine rockets fired from a helicopter, damaging the first three floors on the southeast side of the hospital and destroying the ambulance entrance. A witness to the attack noted that there was an FSA unit to protect the hospital present and that one of the FSA members attempted to fire at the helicopter. Dar Al-Shifa hospital was attacked again with several rockets during the first week of October, damaging the third, fourth and fifth floors on the southern side of the hospital. On the morning of 28 October, a fighter jet dropped several “barrel bombs” on the general area around Dar Al-Shifa hospital. 7. One interviewee, who was hospitalised at a field hospital in Ansar after being hit by sniper fire, relayed how on 7 September, the hospital was shelled, causing significant damage to the building and its infrastructure. a 110 See A/HRC/21/50, Annex II for the applicable law. GE.13-10627