A chemical weapons attack was reported in northern Syria. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov dismissed the reports that chemical weapons were used in the area as an unfounded information attack. It added that Mohamad Hazouri, Aleppo’s health director, said five people were killed and eight had breathing problems after shells filled with toxic gas struck Aleppo’s Old City.
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According to updates from OCHA, three hospitals in Andan town, Hor village and Haritan sub-district in Aleppo governorate were reportedly damaged by airstrikes on 30 and 31 July.
The Syrian regime’s key ally Russian Federation launched heavy air strikes overnight on the outskirts of divided Aleppo city, slowing a “last-chance” assault by rebels seeking to break a government siege.
The city’s eastern neighborhoods were completely encircled by government troops last week, cutting off all supply lines.
“Now, my hope is that we can arrive at that”, Kerry said, before issuing a new, if vaguer, suggestion of a potential U.S. breaking point.
Rebels said jets believed to be Syrian and Russian bombed their areas southwest of Aleppo. The weapon now is chlorine gas, the very thing outlawed after its use in World War I.
The downing of the Russian helicopter Monday was the biggest single loss of life for Syria’s key military backer since its warplanes started carrying out airstrikes in September 2015.
In Libya, pro-government forces, backed by USA air strikes, fought to advance on Islamic State group jihadists in Sirte yesterday despite mines and snipers, a spokesman said.
Members of Jabhat Fateh Al-Sham have a strong presence in Idlib province, as do other rebel groups fighting against the Syrian regime.
The chemical raids come as the Syrian army is making progress in operations to retake Aleppo from militants who are seeing the noose tightening around them in the areas which they control.
Overnight, at least 10 civilians including four children were killed in rebel shelling of government-controlled districts on Aleppo’s southwestern edges, the Observatory said. Some 250,000 civilians are feared to be trapped in the rebel-held eastern districts.
Since then, more than a quarter of a million people have been killed and more than 10 million displaced across the war-battered country, according to United Nations figures.
The situation for residents in Aleppo is getting increasingly worse.
Syria has been gripped by foreign-backed militancy since March 2011. The last delivery to the opposition-held half of the city, home to an estimated 300,000 people, was in June. “The Syrian Civil Defence was not able to determine the type of the gas”, said the spokesman.
The Syrian government and its Russian allies were not immediately available for comment.
Blanco told CNN that none of Doctors Without Borders’ sources in the city had seen the corridors being used.
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Amnesty International said in a report released in July that Islamist rebels and jihadis active in Syria were guilty of war crimes, accusing them of being responsible for “a frightening wave of kidnappings, torture and summary executions”.
