(Al Jazeera) At least three people have been killed in a rebel rocket attack on a hospital in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo.<\/p>\n
The attack was part of a shelling that left at least 19 people dead in government-controlled areas of the city on Tuesday, a monitoring group said.<\/p>\n
Rebels and Syrian government forces have been battling each other with rockets and bombs across Aleppo and its outskirts for days now.<\/p>\n
A partial truce is in effect in Syria but it does not cover Aleppo, the country’s largest city and the\u00a0scene of its worst violence\u00a0in recent weeks.<\/p>\n
In Sunday’s violence, government forces carried out air strikes on Aleppo’s rebel-held areas, including the Sakkour neighbourhood, after the rebels’ rocket attack.<\/p>\n
Syria’s Ikhbariya news said three women were killed and 17 injured inside the hospital, located in the Muhafaza neighbourhood.<\/p>\n
“[Dozens] martyred and wounded in rockets fired by terrorists at al-Dabbit Hospital,” a news flash carried on state TV said.<\/p>\n
The army said rebels had launched a widespread attack on civilian areas and hit the hospital.<\/p>\n
It accused groups including al-Nusra Front, Ahrar al-Sham and Jaish al-Islam of being behind the shelling.<\/p>\n
The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights also reported casualties at al-Dabbit Hospital, adding that the building had been heavily damaged.<\/p>\n
The monitoring group said rebel shelling of government-held areas killed at least 19 people, including three children.<\/p>\n
Rebel gains claimed
\nAhmad, a local Free Syrian Army fighter who declined to provide his surname, claimed rebel groups are making gains against government forces in Muhanna and Halab Jadaydeh.<\/p>\n
“The fighters took several positions from Assad’s militias so far and the clashes are fierce and ongoing,” he told Al Jazeera, referring to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.<\/p>\n
“This attack is a response to Assad’s continuing campaign of air strikes on the city and his targeting and killing of civilians here.”<\/p>\n
Several hospitals and clinics\u00a0have previously been hit by deadly air strikes on rebel-held areas of Aleppo.<\/p>\n
The latest deaths come on top of the more than 250 people killed in less than two weeks across the city.<\/p>\n
The Syrian opposition has accused the government of “war crimes and crimes against humanity” in Aleppo as barrel bombs have been dropped on the city and surrounding areas.<\/p>\n
Fayad Mohammad, a resident of al-Sheikh Fares district in eastern Aleppo, said that his neighborhood was struck seven times on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
He says barrel bombs –\u00a0crude and unguided explosives –\u00a0and shells have pounded his neighbourhood. “There is a lot of damage,” he told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n
“We hoped that we would be included in yesterday’s ceasefire agreement, but the war planes are still in the sky.”<\/p>\n
Speaking to Al Jazeera, he said: “We haven’t been able to go to our house since early morning because there is heavy artillery fire and shelling. We might die or get very badly injured by the random strikes.”<\/p>\n
Hamed Kasem, who lives in the Shaar area of eastern Aleppo, said he had seen many civilians injured as the attacks continued in his neighbourhood.<\/p>\n
“Both today and last night, we haven’t been able to rest because the sound of helicopters and bombardment.”<\/p>\n
First-hand accounts
\nBesides the dead, more than 1,500 people have wounded in Aleppo as a result of the fighting.<\/p>\n
In a field hospital, one of the injured, Abu Ali, told Al Jazeera’s Amro Halain that he lost a leg and the use of an arm as a result of a missile strike.<\/p>\n
“I was injured in Helanieh. I was hit when a missile struck our area. I have lost my leg and the use of my arm,” he said.<\/p>\n
“When people came to rescue us, another missile hit us. They were only two minutes apart.”
\nOPINION: Aleppo’s reckoning
\nThe latest attack comes as\u00a0diplomatic efforts intensify\u00a0for Aleppo to be included in a ceasefire.<\/p>\n
Staffan de Mistura, the\u00a0UN special envoy on Syria, said on Tuesday he wanted to focus on bringing a cessation of hostilities in Syria back on track at a meeting with Sergey Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister,\u00a0in Moscow.<\/p>\n
Lavrov said he expected to have a fruitful conversation, adding that Russia and the US were also working on resolving the Syria crisis.<\/p>\n
De Mistura’s meeting with Lavrov comes a day after he met John Kerry, the\u00a0US secretary of state,\u00a0in Geneva.<\/p>\n
The US and Russia, a close ally of the Syrian government, are considered key to resolving the five-year war that de Mistura estimates has killed about 400,000 people.<\/p>\n
Syria’s conflict erupted in 2011 after the repression of anti-government protests and has since escalated into a complex, multi-faceted war.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
(Al Jazeera) At least three people have been killed in a rebel rocket attack on a hospital in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo. The attack was part of a shelling that left at least 19 people dead in government-controlled areas of the city on Tuesday, a monitoring group said. Rebels and Syrian government forces have been battling each other… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1\/revisions\/25"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}