The United Nations says it is talking to Russian Federation about getting a longer halt to hostilities, to help the two million people trapped in the divided Syrian city of Aleppo.
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The local activist group Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently meanwhile said the airstrikes on Raqqa killed at least 20 civilians and cut the city’s water supply.
The pause would see “all military hostilities, aviation strikes and artillery strikes” stop between 0700 GMT and 1000 GMT for an unspecified period.
The offer came one day after crucial talks between President Vladimir Putin and Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
ITV News has documented the battle with many observers expressing fears of a humanitarian crisis with thousands trapped inside the city with scarce resources.
The United Nations said Russian Federation was considering expanding three-hour pauses in fighting every morning to bring in desperately-needed aid.
The UN has called for urgent aid access to Aleppo and 48-hour weekly pauses for the aid deliveries, warning that civilians are at grave risk from water shortages and disease as fighting has intensified.
Rebel fighters managed to break the siege over the weekend, but a safe corridor for civilians and aid has not yet been established.
On Wednesday, air strikes killed at least 19 people and wounded dozens in Idlib province, southwest of Aleppo.
The gas was thought to have been chlorine dropped in a barrel bomb, said the Syrian Civil Defence, whose volunteer emergency response workers are known as the “White Helmets”.
The Syrian government attack came hours after Aleppo residents danced in the streets after Russian Federation, which has conducting air strikes along with Syrian troops, said it would observe a three-hour daily ceasefire to allow humanitarian aid to reach the 300,000 residents of Aleppo who have been under siege.
Doctors in the eastern half implored US President Barack Obama on Thursday to protect civilians from repeated atrocities in their city.
Yesterday at least four people were killed after what’s believed to be a chlorine bomb fell on a rebel-held area of the city. “I bought potatoes, tomatoes, and chicken, and I’ll ask my wife to make us grilled chicken with potatoes tonight”, he said, smiling.
“We do not need tears or sympathy or even prayers, we need your action”.
Human Rights Watch said it had documented six strikes by regime or Russian warplanes on health facilities in the north that killed 17 people in the past two weeks.
Footage obtained by the BBC shows people with breathing difficulties receiving treatment at a hospital.
“The shelling is still ongoing. this Russian propaganda is a lie”, Mahmoud al-Shami, an activist based in the eastern sector of Aleppo, told dpa.
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Dr. Houssam Alnahhas, of the chemical, biological, nuclear, and radiological task force with the Union of Medical Care and Relief Organization said samples had been collected but they had been unable to be transported outside of Syria due to the security situation.
