BEIRUT – The Syrian army and militia allies seized ground north of Aleppo on Saturday, tightening a siege of the city’s rebel-held east while warplanes bombed it relentlessly in a Russian-backed offensive that has left Washington’s Syria policy in tatters.

The capture of Handarat, a Palestinian refugee camp a few kilometres north of Aleppo, marked the first major ground advance of the offensive, which the government announced on Thursday. The camp, on elevated ground overlooking one of the main roads into Aleppo, had been in rebel hands for years.

“Handarat has fallen,” an official with one of the main Aleppo rebel groups told Reuters. An army statement confirming the advance said “large numbers of terrorists” had been killed.

The assault on Aleppo, where more than 250,000 civilians are trapped in a besieged opposition sector, could be the biggest battle yet in a civil war that has killed hundreds of thousands of people and driven 11 million from their homes.

Children finish their first day of school in the rebel held town of Maaret al-Numan, Syria September 24, 2016. The text on the wall next to the Free Syrian Army flag reads in Arabic, “My country’s flag.” (Photo: Syria)

Two weeks after Moscow and Washington announced a ceasefire, President Bashar al-Assad and his Russian and Iranian allies appear to have launched a campaign for a decisive battlefield victory that has buried any hope for diplomacy.

Dozens of people have been reported killed in eastern Aleppo since the army announced the new offensive. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, who hammered out the truce over the course of months of intensive diplomacy, was left this week pleading in vain this week with Russia to halt air strikes.

Residents say air strikes on eastern Aleppo have been more intense than ever, using more powerful bombs. Rebel officials said heavy air strikes on Saturday hit at least four areas of the opposition-held east, and they believe the strikes are mostly being carried out by Russian warplanes. Video of the blast sites shows huge craters several metres wide and deep.

“There are planes in the sky now,” Ammar al Selmo, the head of the Civil Defence rescue service in the opposition-held east, told Reuters from Aleppo on Saturday morning.

The group draws on ambulance workers and volunteers who dig survivors and the dead out of the rubble, often with their bare hands. It says several of its own headquarters have been destroyed in the latest bombing. “Our teams are responding but are not enough to cover this amount of catastrophe,” Selmo said.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said at least 45 people, among them 10 children, were killed in eastern Aleppo on Saturday. Rescue workers said Friday’s death toll was over 100.

The army says it is only targeting militants in the campaign announced on Thursday evening.

– Reuters