Air strikes hit rebel-held parts of Aleppo hours into truce: monitor
Air strikes hit rebel-held parts of Aleppo just hours into an announced 48-hour ceasefire and fighting carried on in and around the northern Syrian city, monitors and witnesses said.
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Aleppo, Syria's largest city before the civil war with a population of more than two million people, has been divided for years into rebel and government sectors. Capturing the city is one of President Bashar al-Assad's key strategic objectives.
Russia, an ally of Syria, announced the truce there on June 16 but did not say which parties had agreed to it. There has been no public comment on the truce announcement from Assad's government or factions fighting his forces.
The Britain-based monitor the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said aerial bombardments and rockets hit a number of neighborhoods in the opposition-held sector, killing seven people.
"There were strikes on a number of residential areas causing fires and damage. The truce was supposed to have come into effect at 12 midnight, but now there is no truce," Bebars Mishal, a civil defense chief working in rebel-held areas of Aleppo told Reuters.
Medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) said an air strike had put one of Aleppo's biggest hospitals out of service.
It was not immediately clear if strikes had hit the 64-bed MSF-supported Omar Bin Abdulaziz hospital directly or nearby, and the extent of damage was not known.
