Eight hospitals bombed in the past week, five of them within the last 48 hours. Food stores running out of supplies. Scores of people killed in a single day.

By Wednesday night, it was clear that the escalation feared for weeks in rebel-held parts of northern Syria was underway, as Russian and Syrian government warplanes carried out a second straight day of intense bombardment.

The attacks have stretched across several provinces, shattering a rare interval of several weeks without airstrikes in the rebel-held districts of Aleppo. The respite there ended after the Syrian and Russian governments announced that the last chance for civilians and fighters to leave east Aleppo or surrender had expired.

The latest bombings spurred a new sense of alarm from hungry, tense residents, as well as from humanitarian agencies that had warned of growing violations of international law — particularly what they described as a pattern of deliberate attacks on health care facilities.

Read More- New York Times

Image courtesy of Reuters