BEIRUT — A bombing campaign in rebel-held districts of Syria's Aleppo city intensified Friday, targeting several neighborhoods and centers of the award-winning volunteer civil defense group known as the White Helmets, as the government announced a new offensive in the area.
Diplomatic efforts in New York have failed to salvage a Syrian cease-fire that lasted nearly a week, before giving way to a new level of violence. Residents and activists say the bombing, which began in earnest late Wednesday night, has been unprecedented, targeting residential areas, infrastructure and civil defense centers. Some streets have been closed off because of piles of rubble.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said at least 27 civilians, including three children, were killed in about 30 raids that began overnight. A member of the city's forensic team, Mohammed Abu Jaafar, said he had documented nine deaths since late Thursday, including five women and two children. Abu Jaafar said it was impossible to document casualties and injuries Friday because of the intensity of the bombing.
The Observatory said dozens of people were wounded and an unknown number remained buried under the rubble of buildings destroyed in the intense airstrikes that began in the early hours Thursday. In the neighborhood of Bab al-Nairab a girl was pulled out alive from under the rubble earlier Friday, according to Ibrahim Alhaj, a member of the Syrian Civil Defense.
Alhaj said three of the group's centers had been targeted in the air bombing campaign that usually accelerates after dark. By Friday morning, one center in the Ansari neighborhood in the southern part of the rebel-held district had been put out of service after it was hit at around 7 a.m. Ambulances and the one fire engine that serves the rebel-held part of Aleppo had been damaged. In another center, Alhaj said, a bomb fell in the courtyard of the center and the extent of the damage was not yet clear.
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