Air strikes pound rebel-held Aleppo districts

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said dozens of air strikes hit the rebel-held half of the divided city, the target of a fresh offensive announced by the Syrian army on Thursday. Aleppo has become the main battle ground of a conflict now in its sixth year. Capturing rebel districts of Syria’s largest city, where more than 250,000 civilians are trapped, would mark the biggest victory of the civil war for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s forces. Bebars Mishal, a civil defence worker in rebel-held Aleppo, said the bombardment continued until 6am. “It’s the same situation. Especially at night, the bombardment intensifies, it becomes more violent, using all kinds of weapons, phosphorous and napalm and cluster bombs,” Mishal told Reuters. “Now, there’s just the helicopter, and God only knows where it will bomb. God knows which building will collapse,” he said. Another civil defence worker, Ismail al-Abdullah, said the overnight bombardment had been less intense than it had been in the past few days and the morning was relatively quiet. The Observatory said it had documented the deaths of 237 people, including 38 children, from air strikes on Aleppo city and the surrounding countryside since last Monday when the ceasefire ended. Of those documented deaths, 162 were in rebel-held east Aleppo city. Civil defence workers say about 400 people have died in the past week in the rebel-held parts of the city and surrounding countryside. Rescue efforts have been severely hampered because bomb damage has made roads impassable and because civil defence centres and rescue equipment have been destroyed in raids. Civil defence worker Ammar al Selmo said rescuers have only two fire trucks and three ambulances left in Aleppo and that three fire trucks, two ambulances and three vans had been hit in the past week. “We are trying to respond ... but we don’t know what tomorrow will bring,” Selmo said, speaking from Gaziantep, Turkey after recently leaving east Aleppo. Brita Hagi Hassan, president of the city council for opposition-held Aleppo, said the bombardment over the past three days has been exceptional. “The planes are not leaving the skies at all ... Life in the city is paralysed.