AFP :
Deadly air strikes hit rebel-held towns across southern Syria on Wednesday putting three hospitals out of service after the government launched a push for the region’s main city Daraa.
President Bashar al-Assad has set his sights on retaking the south, a strategic region that neighbours Jordan and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.
A ceasefire was put in place in the region last year, brokered by Jordan, Russia and the United States.
But, after clearing the last rebel pockets around Damascus in recent months, government forces have waged an intensifying assault over the past week against the much larger rebel zone in the south.
After days of air strikes and artillery fire against rebel-held towns and villages across Daraa province, on Tuesday it was the turn of the rebel-held sector of the divided provincial capital.
The bombardment of rebel-neighbourhoods in the south of the city lasted throughout Tuesday and into Wednesday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
“There are rockets, barrel bombs and Russian and Syrian air strikes hitting rebel areas of Daraa, particularly the Daraa al-Balad neighbourhood,” said Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman.
The rebels hold a horseshoe-shaped band of territory and government forces have already isolated one end of it with the recapture of two strategic villages on Monday night. They are seeking to cut rebel territory into more manageable chunks, a strategy they have successfully employed elsewhere in Syria. But they have yet to make any ground advance on the rebel sector of Daraa city. Air strikes on the south killed eight civilians on Wednesday, the Britain-based Observatory said, bringing the civilian death toll over the past week to 54.
The strikes also ravaged infrastructure, with health services taking the brunt of the bombardment.
Three hospitals were forced to close after strikes hit the rebel-held towns of Saida, Al-Mseifra and Al-Jiza, the Observatory said.
“The hospital in Al-Jiza was damaged this morning. There were Russian air strikes close to the hospital, which damaged it and put it out of service,” Abdel Rahman said. The latest closures bring to five the number of hospitals that have been put out of service by the government’s offensive in the south. Syria has become infamous for attacks on health workers.
