Syria's leading diplomat laughs off Aleppo hospital bombings

A video has emerged of Syria's ambassador to the UN Bashar al-Jaafari laughing at a journalist when questioned about the regime's role in the devastating bombings of Aleppo's two largest hospitals.

The calous reaction was screened by al-Jazeera English when a journalist asking Jaafari about Wednesday's attacks in the rebel held east of the war-ravaged city.

The Syrian diplomat ingored the question and chuckles loudly as he walks off.

"Ambassador? Did you bomb the two hospitals in Aleppo?," al-Jazeera diplomatic editor James Bays asked Jaafari as he walked down a flight of stairs at the United Nations building in New York on Wednesday.

Jaafari then let out a low-pitched laugh and ignored the question, leaving the reporter looking mildly baffled.

"Whether that was a laugh of contempt, or glee, or whether it was just a nervous laugh, [it] was quite an extraordinary reaction when his government is accused of war crimes, but he audibly laughs," Bays said.

	East Aleppo's two largest hospitals have been left inoperable [Getty]

East Aleppo's two largest hospitals were left inoperable after the bombings, prompting UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to describe that attack as a war crime.

On Thursday, The UN painted a picture of a desperate situation in eastern Aleppo, warning that "hundreds" needed medical evacuation and that there was only enough food for a quarter of the city's population.

"Utmost on our mind is the need to address the very concerning medical situation" in the east of Aleppo, UN deputy envoy for Syria, Ramzy Ezzeldin Ramzy, told reporters in Geneva.

"Medical evacuations are urgently needed," he stressed, adding that "probably hundreds" of people needed to be urgently evacuated from the war-ravaged city.

Ramzy warned that medical supplies were running dangerously low and only around 35 doctors remained in eastern Aleppo, where an estimated 250,000 people have been under siege by regime forces since early September.

The United Nations aid chief also warned that Aleppo faced a humanitarian catastrophe "unlike any" witnessed so far in Syria's brutal five-year war.

The war-battered city has descended into a "merciless abyss of humanitarian catastrophe unlike any we have witnessed in Syria", Stephen O'Brien, the UN under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs, told the Security Council.