BEIRUT—Air strikes and artillery killed more than 60 people in the past 24 hours in Aleppo, including dozens at a hospital in a rebel-held neighborhood, as Syria’s largest city was turned once again into a major battleground in the civil war, officials said on Thursday.
Aid agencies warn that Aleppo is on the brink of a humanitarian disaster with the collapse of a two-month cease-fire and stalled peace talks.
The intensified violence—by far the worst since the partial cease-fire began—coincides with reports of a military buildup outside Aleppo that many fear is a prelude for a government attempt to force a complete siege of the city’s neighborhoods.
Battle-hardened residents were shocked by the bloodshed. Opposition activists accused the government of carpet-bombing rebel-controlled areas, while Syrian state media said more than 1,000 mortar rounds and rockets were fired at government-held districts, killing 22 people.
Video posted online by opposition activists showed rescuers pulling bodies from shattered buildings in the rebel neighborhoods of Sukkari, Kallasa, and Bustan al-Qasr.
In one scene, a building’s staircase hung sideways and old men were sobbing.
“The walls, cupboards, everything fell on top of them,” cried one man. In another, a clearly terrified small girl with pigtails wept silently while held by a man.
A blond girl walked from the rubble behind her mother, questioning why they were bombed. “What have we done?” she cried.
In the rebel-held Sukkari neighborhood 27 people died, as a well-known field hospital supported by Doctors Without Borders and the International Committee for the Red Cross was hit overnight, along with nearby buildings, according to opposition activists and rescue workers.
United Nations envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura appealed to the US and Russia to help revive the peace talks and cease-fire, which he said “hangs by a thread.”
However, the violence only escalated. Chief opposition negotiator Mohammed Alloush blamed the government of President Bashar al-Assad for the violence, saying it shows “the environment is not conducive to any political action.”
“What is happening is a crime of ethnic and sectarian cleansing by all means,” Alloush told The Associated Press (AP), adding it was an attempt by Assad’s government to drive residents from Aleppo.
But a citizen journalist said there was little sign of people fleeing the city. “Where can they go?” Bahaa al-Halaby said.
A Damascus-based Syrian military official denied the government had hit the hospital. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media.
Russian Defense Ministry Spokesman Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov also denied bombing any hospitals in Aleppo, saying its aircraft have not flown any missions in the region for several days.
Col. Steve Warren, the spokesman for the US-led campaign against the Islamic State (IS) group, said fighter jets from the international coalition have not carried out any air strikes in Aleppo in the past 24 hours.
About 200 civilians have been killed in the past week in Syria, nearly half of them around Aleppo.
With the UN-sponsored peace talks in Geneva completely deadlocked, Syrians are watching the escalating violence with dread, fearing that Aleppo is likely to be the focus of the next, more vicious phase of the five-year-old war.
The hospital that was hit in Sukkari has been one of the main medical centers for Aleppo since the city became divided in 2012.
Among the 27 dead were 14 patients and staff, including three children and six employees, officials said. A dentist and one of the last pediatricians in opposition-held areas of Aleppo were among the victims. The toll was expected to rise.
The 34-bed, multistory hospital, the area’s main pediatric care center, was “hit by direct air strike,” according to a statement by Doctors Without Borders, also known by its French acronym MSF.
The hospital had an emergency room, an intensive-care unit and an operating room, and its eight doctors and 28 nurses offered services, such as obstetric care, outpatient and inpatient treatment, the MSF said. The group has supported the hospital since 2012.
The 250,000 people still in Aleppo will now have to find an alternative facility for care, said Sam Taylor, who is Syria communications coordinator for MSF and is based in Amman, Jordan.
“We’re absolutely appalled,” he told AP.
Dating to the 1990s, the hospital was renamed for one of the uprising’s early victims, Basel Aslan, after the area came under rebel control. Aslan had been detained by security forces and tortured to death, said civil-defense volunteer Ibrahim Alhaj.
The civil defense, also known as the White Helmets, said the hospital and adjacent buildings were struck in four consecutive air strikes.
Video posted by the White Helmets showed lifeless bodies, including children, being pulled from a building and loaded into ambulances amid screams and wailing. Distraught rescue workers tried to keep away onlookers, apparently fearing more bombs.
Shortly after midday on Thursday, new air strikes in rebel-held areas killed at least 20 people in two neighborhoods, the Syrian Civil Defense and the Observatory said.
Videos by activists showed dust and smoke rising from burning buildings as men and women ran from collapsing houses and children cried, looking for their parents.