Intensified Fighting in Aleppo

At least 23 people were killed in airstrikes on opposition-held areas of Aleppo on Tuesday according to activists, the Associated Press reported.

Split between a rebel-held east and government-held west since 2012, Syria’s largest city is undergoing the most intense bombing campaign in the past five years.

Government forces and their Russian allies have sustained an aerial campaign on the war-torn city, targeting hospitals, shelters and rescue workers for the past week.

Aleppo is the last major city in Syria still contested by government and rebel forces. Last week, the most recent cease-fire, brokered by the U.S. and Russia, failed to bring an end to the fighting or facilitate aid deliveries.

Russia’s deputy foreign minister Mikhail Bogdanov told Syria’s ambassador to Moscow that Russia has “a firm intention to continue providing assistance to the Syrian government in fighting terrorism and to help achieve the soonest possible political settlement of the Syrian crisis.”

Urgent Need for Medical Evacuations in Aleppo

The sick and wounded trapped in rebel-held Aleppo must be evacuated for treatment, the World Health Organization (WHO) and Red Cross said on Tuesday, Reuters reported.

Only 35 doctors remain in the opposition-held parts of the war-torn city, WHO said, as the government intensified its attack on the city with the aid of Russian airstrikes and Iranian-backed militias.

“WHO is calling for the immediate establishment of humanitarian routes to evacuate sick and wounded from the eastern part of the city,” said WHO spokeswoman Fadela Chaib.

She added that hundreds of wounded people are trapped in the besieged eastern part of the city, where only seven clinics remain, not all of which are fully functional.

WHO submitted a request to the Syrian Ministry of Health and Ministry of Foreign Affairs for medical evacuations, with possible options including Bab al Hawa hospital in rebel-held Idlib province, and hospitals in government-controlled western Aleppo.

“There is a desperate need for medical evacuations; hospitals are short of surgical trauma items and blood products for transfusions,” said Red Cross spokeswoman Krista Armstrong.

U.S. Announces New Aid Package to Syrian Relief Efforts

The United States announced a new aid package of $364 to Syria on Tuesday, Agence France-Presse reported.

The new package will be released to U.N. agencies and NGOs providing aid to vulnerable Syrians both inside of the country and to those who have fled the ongoing conflict, the State Department said.

Altogether the U.S. has spent $5.9 billion in aid to Syria since the conflict started more than five years ago, making it the biggest donor to Syrian relief efforts.

The newly announced package does not, however, represent new funding, but would be released from funds already allocated to Congress, said Anne Richard, assistant secretary of state for population, refugees and migration.

“And this is probably … our last announcement of the fiscal year,” Richard said, three days before the end of fiscal year 2016.

An ongoing offensive by the Syrian government and Russian allies in the past week has killed more than 200 people, following a failed U.S.- and Russian-brokered cease-fire that lasted barely a week. The cease-fire’s failure has led to criticism of the Obama administration as having no alternative plans to stem the violence in Syria.

Obama “and his team are always looking carefully at the situation to determine if there is something different that we can do,” said White House spokesman Josh Earnest on Tuesday.

Recommended Reads:

• The Christian Science Monitor: Making of a ‘Martyr’: Why Would a Young Iranian Fight and Die in Syria?
• Now: Turkey’s De Facto Safe Zone in Northern Syria
• LSE: Gendered Vulnerability and Forced Conscription in the War in Syria
• BBC News: Syria War: The Toy Smuggler Bringing Bags of Joy to Children
• Al Monitor: What’s Keeping Syria’s Rebel Forces From Consolidating Their Power?