Russian Federation official: Strikes in Syria only target Islamic State

The deliveries, which require complex negotiations to ensure the security of the aid workers, were announced a day after United Nations aid chief Stephen O’Brien yesterday told the Security Council that the humanitarian crisis was worsening in Syria.

Mr O’Brien noted that the “deliberate tactic of cruelty” was mostly employed by President Bashar al-Assad’s forces.

Capturing eastern Aleppo would be a major strategic victory for al-Assad’s regime, which in recent months has also succeeded in effectively starving rebels out of strategic areas on the outskirts of the capital Damascus.

Egypt angered its top financial backer last month when it backed Russian and French draft resolutions on Syria at the U.N. Security Council.

About 275,000 people remain trapped in rebel-held areas of Aleppo, where Syrian government airstrikes in the past week have killed dozens and knocked out medical facilities.

The government aerial campaign began as Russian Federation announced an offensive against militants in the armed groups’ stronghold in Idlib province and the central province of Homs.

The military once again urged rebels to pull out of the areas of the city they control.

Aleppo withstood another day of all-out war as bombardments in eastern Aleppo left at least 27 people dead and 120 injured on Monday, according to the Syrian Civil Defense Force, also called the White Helmets.

“There are now no hospitals functioning in the besieged area of the city”, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said in a statement on Sunday, citing reports from its partners in the area.

Several families attempted to smuggle themselves out of the besieged section of the city overnight on Tuesday, paying smugglers to take them from the Bustan al-Pasha neighbourhood into the Kurdish-held Sheikh Maqsoud area, before heading into the rebel-held Aleppo countryside.

The latest government offensive has hit hospitals and rescue centres, and forced schools to close.

“What has been unleashed on civilians this past week is yet another low in an unrelenting inhuman onslaught, and it is as heart-breaking as it is not inevitable”.

O’Brien said residents there will soon face a “harsh winter without heating or the bare essentials for life”.

“The Foreign Secretary reiterated the UK’s concern about the grave humanitarian situation in Syria, and urged Russian Federation to use its influence with the Syrian regime to stop the assault on Aleppo and allow aid into the city”.

At the Asia-Pacific summit in Peru on Sunday, US President Barack Obama said he was “not optimistic” about Syria’s future, warning that east Aleppo was likely to “fall”.

– Russian Federation has offered to provide samples linked to alleged chemical weapon use in the Syrian city of Aleppo to the worldwide chemical weapons watchdog, the organization said Tuesday.