Rebels accused the government of carrying out a chemical attack on the town of Saraqeb, south-west of Aleppo, on Tuesday. None of the claims could be independently verified.
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According to Abu Leith, Russian and Syrian regime warplanes have recently stepped up attacks against residential areas of Aleppo’s opposition-held Al-Sukkari, Maadi, Bustan al-Qasr and Al-Qadi districts.
Unicef’s regional director, Saad Houry, called for unhindered humanitarian access to the divided city and for children to be protected.
Egeland says there is “fighting in too many places, and that affects the besieged towns more than anything else”.
Elsewhere in Aleppo province, the monitor said an alliance of Kurdish and Arab fighters was advancing inside the Islamic State group bastion of Manbij.
Government troops managed to seize two hilltops including Telat al-Mahroukat and the villages of Khweriz and al-Amriyeh, which the rebels took control of two days ago, the Observatory said.
Opposition activists in Aleppo said government forces struck several makeshift hospitals in the city, Syria’s largest and once commercial centre. In a statement, the group said it has verified six deadly air strikes against hospitals in Aleppo governorate, all perpetrated by Syrian government forces.
The Syrian conflict began as a mostly unarmed uprising against President Bashar al-Assad in March 2011, but it quickly escalated into a full-blown civil war with more than 280,000 people now estimated to have been killed in fighting between between the government, the opposition and other armed groups.
The army said it had foiled the attack on the artillery base and two major barracks and that hundreds of insurgents had been killed and much of their equipment and tanks destroyed. “Each of these assaults constitutes a war crime”.
People inspect the damage at the Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF)-backed al-Quds hospital after it was hit by airstrikes, in a rebel-held area of Syria’s Aleppo, April 28, 2016.
The United States and Russian Federation were in intensive discussions to “shore up” Syria’s collapsed nationwide truce and their military experts were still trying to agree a cooperation plan “that would unlock the entire solution”, Ramzy said.
Hospitals supported by Doctors Without Borders in rebel-held Aleppo have seen a significant increase in wounded seeking treatment since the fighting intensified this week, said Marco Pablo Blanco, Middle East operations manager for the humanitarian group. The army said it was the biggest assault by rebels against government-held areas in the a year ago.
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Moscow informed Washington of the use of toxic shells on Monday, Lieutenant-General Sergey Chvarkov, head of the Russian Reconciliation Center in Syria, said.
