The UN says 300,000 civilians still live in rebel-held parts of Aleppo city, despite four years of fighting and near-daily bombing.
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The Al-Watan daily, which is close to the government, reported on Wednesday that government forces “advanced again south and southwest of Aleppo because of the major setbacks” among rebel factions.
Eastern districts came under government siege on 17 July, sparking concerns for the estimated 250,000 people still living there.
The Russian military says it has informed the USA that it believes rebels in the Syrian city of Aleppo have deployed “toxic substances“, BBC News reports.
And pro-government website al-Masdar News said an initial rebel advance into the Ramussa district was pushed back “following a long and gruesome battle”.
“This battle is the last chance for rebels”.
“They will first try to capture the nearby al-Hikmeh school, which is used by regime forces as a military unity base”.
The fall of that strip would also cut off western Aleppo, which is in government hands.
Al Jazeera’s Milad Fadel sent this report from the frontline.
This tank driven by a Free Syrian Army fighter was spotted in the Ramousah area.
Since last month, Syria has successfully imposed a blockade on rebel-controlled sections of Aleppo, and Russian Federation and Syria have been heavily bombarding targets, which reportedly include hospitals, markets, and warehouses. “Russia’s decision to besiege the city risks supercharging extremists, who are now still in the minority among the Syrian opposition”, he said.
Syrian rebel fighters on Friday launched one of the fiercest offensives on Syrian regime’s army positions in the northern city of Aleppo, using mortar shells and explosives.
Dozens of combatants on both sides were killed, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
On Tuesday evening, Syrias state-run SANA news agency reported that Syrian officials said an attack using poisonous gas had occurred in Aleppo. “We need to do something about Aleppo and very quickly”.
According to the latest figures from the Russian military “372 civilians, including 76 children” were able to flee the areas controlled by illegal armed groups in Aleppo via safe routes.
In Damascus, a visiting top Iranian lawmaker said the Syrian government and its allies seek to “liberate” tens of thousands of Aleppo’s residents from the grip of what he called terrorist groups.
In a separate incident, Tuesday media reports suggested that toxic gas had been dispersed in an area in which a Russian helicopter had been shot down, in Syria’s Idlib province.
Also on Wednesday, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that a British citizen and a Slovenian national were killed while fighting with the main Kurdish force battling the Islamic State group was killed last month in the former ISIS-stronghold of Manbij near the Aleppo.
SOHR said the hospital strike killed a pharmacist and put the facility out of service.
“This is just one of many instances where hospitals have been targeted in Syria”.
“Red lines have been declared by the worldwide community and red lines have been ignored”.
“We are in intensive discussions with the Russian Federation and the government of Syria to ensure that the civilian population in Aleppo is protected”, U.N. Deputy Special Envoy for Syria Ramzy Ezzeldin Ramzy told journalists in Geneva.
The opposition has demanded that Assad step down and whether it will agree to have him stay in power during a transition period or beyond is a key sticking point in negotiations.
Abdul Rahman said the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) now held 70 percent of the town.
Diplomatic efforts to end the Syria fighting continue to be led by the U.S. and Russian Federation, with the hope that all sides in the conflict will return to Geneva towards the end of August for a resumption of United Nations peace talks. He said the SDF controlled almost three-quarters of Manbij.
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Earlier this year, the Syrian-American Medical Society (SAMS) said chemical weapons attacks have killed almost 1,500 people since civil war broke out in Syria more than five years ago.
