Children and medical staff were among at least 18 civilians killed in air strikes that hit a hospital, market and village as the Syrian regime continues attempts to dislodge rebels from Aleppo province.
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The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group says Sunday that government airstrikes and shelling on opposition areas in the provincial capital, Aleppo city, and surrounding countryside killed 40 civilians.
He spoke after a Syrian government airstrike on the city’s eastern Zabadieh neighbourhood, in which at least four barrel bombs were dropped, one of which purportedly released the gas.
The Syrian Civil Defence said one of its centres in the rebel-held part of Aleppo had also been hit.
Further east, Russian raids hit the IS stronghold of Raqqa, killing at least 24 civilians and wounding 70 people, said the Observatory.
Syria has been mired in civil war since 2011, with government forces loyal to President Bashar Assad fighting a number of opposition factions and extremist groups.
Tens of thousands of Syrians displaced from Aleppo have found refuge in Idlib, home to a pre-war population of 1.5 million.
Some recent gains by the insurgents have been made by Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, previously known as the Nusra Front, which described itself as an affiliate of al Qaeda until it cut ties with the militant movement and renamed itself late last month.
The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons said that reports of possible chemical weapons use in Syria “are of great concern”.
Fighting for the city has intensified this summer, after regime troops seized control of the last supply route into rebel-held areas in mid-July. State media said another 22 people were wounded.
Meanwhile, regime and Russian warplanes reportedly struck residential areas in the towns of Ariha and Saraqeb in Idlib.
In the south, rockets set two apartment blocks on fire in a besieged, opposition-held suburb of Damascus.
Washington also expressed concern over the reports, which it said would be in violation of a 2013 United Nations resolution to dismantle the Syrian government’s chemical weapons arsenal.
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Following an worldwide appeal, the Syrian Arab Red Crescent evacuated a 10-year-old girl from the besieged Damascus suburb of Madaya to receive urgent care after activists say she was shot by a pro-government sniper on August 2.
