Syrian Government Rejects Aleppo Self-Rule Proposal

Global concern has been growing over the fighting, after Damascus launched a ferocious assault in Aleppo last Tuesday, using air strikes, barrel bombs and artillery fire in a bid to recapture the east of the battered city.

Premature babies in Aleppo have been removed from their incubators after air strikes destroyed hospitals across the city, prompting condemnation of the Syrian government and Russian Federation by the USA and the UN.

At least 27 people, including children, were killed in eastern Aleppo on Saturday alone in intense air strikes, barrel bombs and artillery rounds, according to the Observatory.

The U.N. humanitarian chief says the number of Syrians living in besieged areas has more than doubled in the past year to almost 1 million people.

The shelling killed at least eight children among 10 deaths in the Saria Hasoun School, bringing the death toll to about 300 since Tuesday, the start of one of the heaviest bombardments in the country’s six-year civil war.

Two of the eastern Aleppo hospitals that are already out of service were attacked, activists said today.

The Syrian government refused the United Nations envoy’s latest proposal for a truce in Aleppo on Sunday, calling on insurgents to withdraw and saying it would not grant autonomy to the rebel-held east in exchange for calm.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, however, which monitors the war, reportedly could not confirm that chlorine gas was used.

The proposed plan would have meant Aleppo could remain under the control of the opposition if rebel fighters withdrew from the city.

Foreign Minister Walid al-Moalem said in a televised news conference that de Mistura discussed the possibility of an autonomous admnistration being set up in eastern Aleppo, but that Damascus completely rejected this.

Syria’s government refers to all those opposed to President Bashar al-Assad’s regime as “terrorists”. He said the government had captured the Zuhour hill, which overlooks parts of the east.

“It said it has shared with all parties to the conflict in Aleppo and concerned member states a detailed humanitarian plan to provide urgently needed assistance to the inhabitants of east Aleppo, and conduct medical evacuations for the ill and injured” confirmed both Syria Humanitarian Coordinator Ali Al-Za’tari and the Regional Humanitarian Coordinator for the Syria Crisis Kevin Kennedy.

Among the latest reported violence: a suspected chemical attack that killed four children and their parents.

Pulled from the wreckage: A man carries a Syrian child to safety following airstrikes on residential areas at the Yakid al Ades village of Aleppo, Syria on November 18.

The news agency reported additional rebel fire on other parts of west Aleppo, which is regularly targeted by the opposition forces that hold the eastern part of the city.

Syrian government forces will eventually emerge victorious, liberate Aleppo and restore calm to all areas of the city, he stressed.

Civilians in the city´s government-controlled west have also been hit in deadly rebel attacks, but the area has continued to receive humanitarian supplies.

No aid has entered the east since government forces surrounded it in July, prompting food and fuel shortages in opposition-held neighbourhoods.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon condemned the assault and “indiscriminate shelling” for killing and maiming scores of civilians, including children, and for leaving eastern Aleppo without functioning hospitals.