All-Out War Returns to Aleppo

Seven days of airstrikes and rebel shelling in Aleppo have killed 200 people, thrusting the divided city back into all-out war.

At least 31 people, including women and children, were killed on Thursday in more than 40 government airstrikes on opposition-held areas of the city, according activists in the area and the U.K.-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

In government-held areas, rebel shelling killed at least 14 people, according to the Observatory and Syrian state media.

U.N. envoy Staffan de Mistura appealed to the presidents of Russia and the United States to intervene and revive a ceasefire that was “barely alive.”

“In the last 48 hours, we have had an average of one Syrian killed every 25 minutes,” he said. “One Syrian wounded every 13 minutes.”

Government airstrikes on Wednesday targeted one of the last remaining hospitals in the opposition-held half of the city, killing at least 27 people, including six staff members and three children.

The al-Quds hospital in the rebel-held neighborhood of Sukari, a medical center supported by Doctors Without Borders and the International Committee of the Red Cross, was reduced to rubble by multiple missiles.

While international aid groups and the Observatory could not specify who carried out Wednesday’s attack on the hospital, opposition activists and members of the Local Coordination Committee said the hospital was hit by Russian fighter jets.

‘Catastrophic’ Situation in Aleppo Could Soon Get Worse

The “catastrophic” situation in Aleppo could soon get worse, as renewed fighting puts aid deliveries to millions in Syria’s north in jeopardy and military analysts point to an impending government siege of the city’s rebel-held half.

“The stakes are so incredibly high because so many civilian lives are at stake, so many humanitarian health workers and relief workers are being bombed, killed, maimed at the moment that the whole lifeline to millions of people is now also at stake,” said Jan Egeland, head of the U.N. humanitarian task force for Syria.

“Doctors have been killed, health workers have been killed and medical workers have been blocked from coming to their patients.”

According to military analysts, the sharp increase in airstrikes could be a sign of an “imminent” government siege of the rebel-held held half of the city.

“A number of signs, including a higher concentration of airstrikes, the movement of Russian artillery support for regime forces, and a variety of skirmishes near a 3-to-4km gap that still keeps Aleppo from being besieged, all show that they are getting ready to move,” Chris Kozak, a Syria analyst for the Institute of War, told Fox News.

Doctors working along the northern border with Turkey said they are “stockpiling medical supplies in Aleppo city as much as we can.”

“We think they will move to besiege Aleppo city as soon as they can.”

U.S. Expects to Admit 10,000 Syrian Refugees This Year

President Barack Obama said Thursday he expected the United States would meet its goal of admitting 10,000 Syrian refugees by the end of the year despite delays and criticisms over security implications.

Obama’s confidence flies in the face of a report published by the State Department in March, nearly halfway to the president’s 2016 fiscal year deadline for the resettlement initiative, indicating that only 1,285 Syrians had been admitted to the U.S.

“We’re going to keep on pushing,” Obama said Thursday when asked whether his goal would be achieved, Reuters reports.

At least 30 governors have tried to pass legislation barring refugees from resettling in their states, over fears that some of them could be violent militants, but courts and attorneys general have said the final decision regarding screening and resettlement is up to the federal government.

Recommended Reads

• Al-Monitor: U.N. Warns of ‘Catastrophic’ Breakdown of Syria Cease-Fire
• The Washington Post: Va. Senator Travels to Syria, Shakes Hands With Bashar al-Assad
• The Guardian: Syria’s Peace Talks Begin to Look Like a Cover for More War
• International Business Times: ISIS Leader, Security Official, Killed in Lebanese Army Raid
• War on the Rocks: The Tangled Web of the Syrian Jihad