We went to war in Iraq on a false premise, led by a man who had already hitched his mast to the warship of George Bush. So many lies, half-truths and media spun stories meant that public confidence has never been the same in international interventionism since Iraq.

So when the chance to act against Bashar Al Assad came in late 2013, Parliament voted against any action, dazed partly by the looming shadow of Iraq.

Fast forward to today and the incoherent and disastrous policies Western nations have taken in Syria, namely of inaction and hand wringing, and we have a civilian population who are bearing the murderous brunt of Assad and his regime. Their hands are not only steeped in blood, they are steeped in the entrails of Syria as a nation which lies like a deceased carcass on the floor. Syria as a nation, no longer lives.

Today, social media postings highlighted the absolute carnage and human rights abuses that are taking place by Assad forces, egged on and supported by another dictator sitting in the Kremlin, who has managed to run rings around the West. These are the painful pictures that show a humanitarian disaster unfolding as we wring our hands and as the opposition in our country has single handedly failed to stand up for military intervention in Syria. So weak is the political opposition that they cannot coherently put together a strategy, but then again, let us not forget who voted to hold the hands of our nation and military at a time when a difference could possibly have been made. It was that same political opposition that cowered in the Commons lobbies and who spoke about the spectre of Iraq when many of those same MPs had supported war in Iraq in 2003.

So as we read these social media statements, ask not what we have done for the people of Syria, but what we have done to the people of Syria through our inaction and moral ambivalence when so many die as we speak.

In the #HumanRightsDay a message for the #UnitedNations from inside the besieged #Aleppo
Stop Assad&Putin bombing#StandWithAleppo#Syria pic.twitter.com/auqpZDIji9

— Lina shamy (@Linashamy) December 10, 2016

A mother with her child and a whole family were killed by Assad and Russian warplanes in my district#StandWithAleppo#Aleppo #Syria pic.twitter.com/9EoNp1u6ox

— Lina shamy (@Linashamy) December 8, 2016

https://twitter.com/RevolutionSyria/status/807012858320080896

46 killed & 230+ injured in #Aleppo city yesterday after being targeted by 140+ aerial attacks,1200+ artillery & 3 chlorine barrel bombs.

— The White Helmets (@SyriaCivilDef) December 9, 2016

Seeing what people have been suffering in #Aleppo hurts a lot more than death.#standWithAleppo @SyriaCivilDef pic.twitter.com/yao71ajrBO

— Ismail Alabdullah (@ismailSCD) December 9, 2016

Statement by East #Aleppo Doctors. #SyriaHasHeroes #StandWithAleppo #Syria pic.twitter.com/juZZHJNUfD

— Peymaneh Shafi (@Peymaneh_Sh) December 11, 2016

Final goodbyes from eastern #Aleppo.. pic.twitter.com/7NdrcBdXVz

— Pieter Nanninga (@pieternanninga) December 12, 2016

Russian warplanes and their Syrian government allies battered rebel-held areas in and around Aleppo on Saturday, and rebels and aid workers accused them of destroying one of the city’s main hospitals and killing at least two patients.

M10, the city’s main trauma hospital, in eastern Aleppo, was struck as the United States and its allies urged Russia, which is trying to crush resistance to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, to halt the bombing and reach a diplomatic resolution.

Saturday’s air strikes focused on major supply lines into rebel-held areas of Aleppo – the Castello Road and Malah district and around the Handarat camp.

Fighting also raged in the city in the Suleiman al Halabi neighbourhood, the front line to the north of Aleppo’s Old City and in the residential Bustan al Basha quarter.

Rebels and rescuers said at least seven missiles were dropped on the hospital, more commonly known as Sakhour, by both Russian jets and Syrian helicopters.

An American relief organisation said two patients were killed and 13 injured in the attack, which was the second on the hospital in less than a week.

“The hospital is now out of service completely. There’s destruction to walls, infrastructure, equipment and generators. There are no more guards or staff left. It’s complete darkness,” said Mohammad Abu Rajab, a radiologist in the hospital.

Footage of the bombed hospital on social media showed extensive damage.

The attack drew immediate condemnation from France and Germany. French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said the shelling of healthcare structures and personnel in Aleppo amounted to war crimes, adding: “Their perpetrators will be held to account.”

“The bombing of Aleppo needs to finally stop! Whoever wants to fight terrorists does not attack hospitals!” German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier tweeted.

The U.S envoy to the United Nations last week called Russia’s actions in Syria “barbarism,” not counter-terrorism.

An official for U.S. President Barack Obama’s administration condemned the bombing, citing “total disregard” for medical professionals and those needing their help.

“Reports of yet another hospital being destroyed further demonstrates the total disregard for the lives of medical professionals and their patients who need critical care because of the Assad regime and Russia’s relentless campaign against the Syrian people.”

Rebels said Moscow and the Syrian army have for months been targeting power plants, hospitals and bakeries to force into surrender the nearly 250,000 believed trapped in the city.

Hundreds of people have been killed in indiscriminate bombing of residential areas and many hundreds more wounded, with little access to treatment in hospitals that lack basic supplies.

The army, aided by hundreds of Iranian-backed militias who have arrived in Aleppo, have backed up the air campaign with a ground offensive on several frontlines.

“The regime is spearheading an attack on all fronts and is trying to open more than one major front and of course there are a lot of amassing of troops mostly based in Handarat,” Abu Haidar, a commander in Fastaqim, one of the rebel groups inside Aleppo, said via internet messaging.

In a telephone conversation with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Friday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Moscow was ready to consider more ways to normalise the situation in Aleppo, the ministry said.

But Lavrov criticised Washington’s failure to separate moderate rebel groups from those the Russians call terrorists, which had allowed forces led by the group formerly known as the Nusra front to violate the U.S.-Russian truce agreed on Sept. 9.

The United States made clear it would not, at least for now, carry through a threat made on Wednesday to halt the diplomacy if Russia did not take immediate steps to end the violence.

Moscow and Assad spurned the ceasefire to launch the new offensive, potentially the biggest and most decisive battle of the civil war, which is now in its sixth year.

BACK AND FORTH

An army source quoted in state media said its forces had made advances, which was denied by rebels.

A news commentary by the state-run Ikhbariyah said “high level coordination from the air and ground by Syrian and Russian warplanes” had allowed the two allies to “successful hit locations where terrorist groups had dug in.”

But rebels said Syrian troops backed by fresh reinforcements from Iranian-backed militias were struggling to make any gains in a ground offensive in a key frontline in the old city.

“They are shelling the old city heavily after another failed attempt to gain ground. They have lost several fighters and we are steadfast,” said Abu Hamam, a rebel from the Failaq al-Sham group.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based group that monitors the war, reported heavy bombardment by government forces and “back and forth” fighting in the Suleiman al-Halabi neighbourhood.

Rebels led by the main Islamist rebel group Ahrar al-Sham said on Saturday they had regained several areas in the Bustan al-Pasha district seized a day before, a strategic point that would allow the army to press into the heart of the rebel held eastern sector.

Russia joined the war exactly a year ago, tipping the balance of power in favour of Assad, who is also supported by Iranian ground forces and Shi’ite militia from Lebanon and Iraq.

The army said it would press its advantage after retaking last Thursday the strategic Handarat camp north of Aleppo that had already changed hands once since the start of the attack.

His face bloodied and completely covered in dust, the little boy sits quietly, staring ahead, dazed and shocked after an apparent air strike in the Syrian city of Aleppo.

Alone in an ambulance, the boy – identified by doctors as five-year-old Omran Daqneesh – tries to wipe the blood off his head, unaware of the injury he has sustained.

Video of children being pulled from the rubble of a building hit by air strikes in Aleppo has been widely circulated on social media, causing upset and condemnation over the harrowing reality of Syria’s five-year war.

Aleppo, split into rebel- and government-controlled areas, has become the focus of fighting in Syria’s five-year conflict.

Rebel-held areas are suffering heavy air strikes daily as pro-government forces try to retake territory lost to rebels two weeks ago in the southwest of Aleppo.

The video was shot on Wednesday in the rebel-held al-Qaterji neighbourhood of the city.

It shows an aid worker carrying the little boy out of a building and placing him on a seat inside an ambulance, before rushing back out to the bombed-out scene. The boy sits alone, stunned, before two more children are brought into the vehicle. A man with blood on his face then joins them.

Aleppo-based freelance photographer Mohammed Raslan Abu Sheikh, who was at the scene, said civilian rescuers and aid workers were elated as Omran was pulled out of the rubble alive with the rest of his family of six.

“He was in a state of shock, not even crying, he made us cry while he himself was silent, just watching us,” Abu Sheikh told Reuters.

Last year, international sympathy for victims of Syria’s war was heightened by a photo of a drowned 3-year-old refugee from Syria, Aylan Kurdi, washed up on a Turkish tourist beach. The image of Aylan, who died when a people smugglers’ boat taking his family and other refugees to a nearby Greek island capsized, swept across social media and was retweeted thousands of times.