Damascus and its ally Russia have pummelled Idlib province and surroundings over the past month despite a truce deal aimed at staving off a humanitarian catastrophe.
The Britannia-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring organization says over 285 civilians have been killed since late April in the enclave, home to almost three million people.
"The pace of air strikes decreased relatively on Thursday compared to previous days," said Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman.
But bombings still killed seven civilians, including five in the town of Maaret al-Numan on the western edge of the turban-held territory, he said.
An AFP photographer reported the strikes hit a residential area, collapsing a building and killing some of those inside.
The body of a victim could be seen still in bed as rescue workers struggled to reach survivors trapped under the rubble.
Idlib province and some surrounding areas are mostly controlled by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham
, a group dominated by former members of al-Qaeda’s Syria affiliate.The United Nations
...aka the Oyster Bay Chowder and Marching Society...
says roughly 270,000 people have been displaced by the fighting since late April and that aid agencies have been forced to halt work in some areas.
Some 30 health facilities and schools have been hit, the UN says.
Despite the surge in attacks, the government has not announced an all-out offensive to retake the entire turban enclave.
Russia and rebel supporter
...just another cheapjack Moslem dictatorship, brought to you by the Moslem Brüderbund....
brokered a ceasefire deal in September to avert a government assault it was feared could spark the worst humanitarian disaster of the eight-year war.
Turkey President Sultan Recep Tayyip Erdogan the First
... Turkey's version of Mohammed Morsi but they voted him back in so they deserve him. It's a sin, a shame, and a felony to insult the president of Turkey...on Thursday spoke by telephone to his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin
...President-for-Life of Russia. He gets along well with other presidents for life. He is credited with bringing political stability and re-establishing something like the rule of law, which occasionally results in somebody dropping dead from poisoning by polonium or other interesting substance. Under Putin, a new group of business magnates controlling significant swathes of Russia's economy has emerged, all of whom have close personal ties to him. The old bunch, without close personal ties to Putin, are in jail or in exile or dead from poisoning by polonium or other interesting substances...
, calling for the ceasefire to be respected, the
Erdogan told Putin it was important to "apply the ceasefire without delay in order to focus once again on finding a political solution" to the Syrian conflict, a statement said.
He also "stressed the need to prevent more lives being lost in regime attacks mainly targeting civilians" and to eliminate the "growing risk" of a wave of