Death toll in Idlib air strikes rises to 73

Numerous wounded have suffered physical and mental injuries that have left them disabled for life.(ANSAmed). Aid agencies say that more than 30,000 people have fled rebel-held eastern neighborhoods of Aleppo that have been under tight siege since July. The violence has caused more than 25,000 civilians to flee.

Russian Federation and China on December 5 vetoed a United Nations Security Council resolution pushed for by Western powers and calling for a seven-day truce in the Syrian city of Aleppo.

Sison said the veto of the cease-fire resolution was “a death sentence for innocent men, women and children” in Aleppo.

The conflict in Syria, which flared up in March 2011, has claimed the lives of more than 400,000 people, according to an estimate by UN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura.

Russian Federation “has every reason to believe” that the plan to hand over the remaining rebel territories to the Syrian Army will work and “resolve the issue of eastern Aleppo”, Lavrov said calling the draft resolution “counterproductive” and going against the solution that the USA and Russian Federation are trying to agree on for Aleppo.

The government’s ally, Russia, is confident that it can reach a deal with the USA, which backs the opposition, that would lead to the withdrawal of rebel fighters.

The resolution, sponsored by New Zealand, Egypt and Spain, seeks to allow for the removal of the sick and wounded and to provide humanitarian aid workers enough time to get food aid and medicine into the city, where almost a quarter of a million people remain besieged by Syrian forces backed by Russian air power.

Dozens have been killed daily in the strikes and crossfire between regime forces and rebels since forces entered the area on November 26, activist groups say.

A rebel official in a third rebel group, the Jabha Shamiya, said al-Shaar had effectively fallen since government forces seized nearby areas that control access to it.

A military official said that the attack would take weeks until the terrorists are eliminated in the area.

“The Syrian Arab Army will continue to implement its missions until the elimination of the terrorists and the recovery of control over all the eastern districts”, he said.

Abdelrazaq and several activists in east Aleppo who spoke to Syria Direct on Monday said opposition fighters were able to retake all the neighborhoods captured Sunday.

“(Russia and China) have chosen to veto not because of a lack of consultation, but due to their long-standing, misplaced faith in a despot who has killed almost half a million of his own people”, Rycroft said. Currently, food and fuel supplies are critically low in the eastern part of Aleppo.

The government also fights alongside Lebanon’s Shiite Hezbollah movement, Iranian forces and Shiite fighters from other countries.

The regime now holds some 60% of eastern Aleppo, making swift gains since breaking through rebel defense lines. Thirty-eight died in the town of Maarat al-Numan, it said.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the army or its allies were attacking in at least eight places.

Rebel forces have regularly shelled government-held areas in response.

The government’s fortunes changed after the Russian air force intervened in September 2015, allowing the government to begin to reconquer it.

For some of the residents, it was their first time seeing their homes in years.