The route was the only remaining road into the east of the city, and was effectively severed on Thursday when regime troops took a hilltop within firing range.
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United Nations spokeswoman Alessandra Vellucci told a regular United Nations briefing in Geneva that intensified hostilities between government forces and armed groups had cut 300,000 people in eastern Aleppo off from humanitarian supplies and commercial goods, and prices in the city were already rising.
A 72-hour nationwide ceasefire, announced by the army to mark the end of the holy month of Ramadan, ended at midnight (2100 GMT Friday).
An AFP correspondent in the eastern side of the city said opposition factions were preventing civilians from using the road.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says rebel attacks on government-held districts killed at least 18 civilians including four children, injuring over 120.
A riverside area in the town of Darkush, near the Turkish border, in western Idlib province was targeted in the air strikes. It wasn’t clear whether it was Syrian or Russian warplanes that carried out the airstrikes on Darkoush.
“They [Syrian regime forces] eventually withdrew from the district, and we are now preparing a new offensive to regain the recently lost areas of Aleppo, including the Castello Road”, the rebel official told ARA News.
The Britain-based monitoring group said 14 children were among the dead, while Syrian state media gave a toll of 44 dead and 300 injured.
More than 280,000 people have been killed and millions displaced since Syria’s civil war erupted with the brutal repression of anti-government protests in 2011.
On Thursday, terrorists also violated the truce by killing at least three people when they shelled Aleppo’s Seif al-Dawla neighborhood late on Wednesday night.
The Syrian army and the Russian military, which also backs president Bashar al Assad, have periodically announced a number of temporary localized truces in areas of intense fighting.
Russian forces have also aided Syria’s government in attempting to crush militants of the Islamic State in the country, as have a USA -led coalition.
He said insurgent fighters had already made gains, and that much of the fighting was taking place in Aleppo’s historic Old City.
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In the summer of 2012, thousands of armed militants stormed residential districts of Aleppo from its countryside, striking the economic nerves of the Syrian government, which has repeatedly accused Turkey of supporting the rebels for undeclared interests in Aleppo. Idlib province and city are strongholds of rebel groups including the al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front.
