Their target, as the Guardian notes, is the Ramouseh district, in southwest Aleppo, capture of which would cut off the city’s western half.
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The horrors of life in rebel-held eastern Aleppo are worsening, residents say, describing acute food shortages and increased aerial bombardment in the battle for control of the key Syria city.
Aleppo is in the midst of a humanitarian crisis, as the eastern rebel-held part of the city has come under siege by government forces.
They detonated at least one large tunnel bomb underneath a government position on the southern outskirts of Aleppo on Tuesday evening, in a renewed attempt to break the government’s siege on the city’s east.
The observatory said 50 rebels and allied militants had been killed since it began, as well as dozens of regime troops.
Syrian forces are reported to have recaptured land close to Aleppo from rebels with the help of heavy Russian air raids.
More than 40 civilians have been killed by shelling on government-held neighbourhoods since Sunday.
A video posted Tuesday on social networks shows Syrian rebel fighters decapitating a boy after having captured him near Aleppo, in northern Syria.
And pro-regime website Al-Masdar News said an initial rebel advance into the Ramussa district was pushed back “following a long and gruesome battle”.
Last week Russian Federation announced the opening of “humanitarian corridors” to allow residents and surrendering fighters to flee for government-held territory.
The UN’s statement about the conditions in Aleppo follows the suspected use of chlorine gas on the town of Saraqeb in Idlib Governorate on Monday night.
Aerial attacks have recently rained down on the remaining medical facilities in the area, further inhibiting efforts to effectively treat injured individuals. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory said at least 11 people, including five children were killed when bombs were dropped in a market in Atareb.
“It is also to send a message to the world that not enough is being done to stop the criminality and warplanes”, Yasser Al-rahil, another journalist and member of the opposition group Revolutionary Forces of Syria media office, told The Independent.
But spokesman John Kirby says the United States always condemns the use of chemical weapons, which would violate two United Nations resolutions and other agreements.
About 30 people, mostly women and children, were affected.
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The assault began on Sunday and is meant to ease the encirclement of the opposition-held east of Aleppo city, where an estimated 250,000 residents have been under regime siege since July 17.
