As Dr Kasem spoke, there came the screeching tyres of another emergency. As in Libya, this is a war being fought not only by ordinary people but by the anticlimactic paraphernalia of peacetime, as small Honda sedans become ambulances overnight.

The stretcher bore a bearded man panting heavily, an army first lieutenant now fighting his former comrades. In the operating room, his shirt was ripped off to reveal bullet wounds to his stomach.

A French surgeon volunteer set to work, methodically removing his innards, disposing of bullets and damaged flesh, sewing up an almost comically circular hole in an intestine. The patient seemed stable, but the surgeon was concerned as he continued to lose blood from an internal wound he could not find.

As the lieutenant had bags of blood poured into him, two men in the next room were busy replenishing the stocks.

As more and more men with bullet wounds were stretchered in during the afternoon and early evening, a portable X-ray machine and an ultrasound were brought into service. The majlis – meeting room – of the house served as storeroom for the basic supply of medicines, as a canteen, and as a triage room. Finally, when the numbers were too many, a drip was set up for a man with blood pouring from his forearm and a bandage round his chest.

The rebels are nonchalant in the face of combat. In the street outside, sniper fire rang out from the right and a mortar exploded simultaneously out of sight 100 yards or so away to the left.

Asked where the government forces were, with fire coming from both sides, one young man pointed in both directions simultaneously and said "There and there". Then he paused, pointed his arm up the road, and said "There, too", and then pointed to the fourth point of the compass and said "There too, but further away". They were, he thought, roughly surrounded.