Airstrikes pound Aleppo for a third straight day

It was a sleepless night for many Aleppo residents in the city on Wednesday, with bombardment continuing until rain broke out over the city at dawn.

Airstrikes pounded Aleppo for a third straight day following the collapse of a ceasefire, as the UN Security Council held crisis talks to try to revive the truce and chart a course towards ending the five-year war in Syria, that has killed 300,000 people.

"We are at a make or break moment," UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told the council, urging world powers to use their influence to help re-start political talks so Syrians can "negotiate a way out of the hell in which they are trapped".

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said at least 11 civilians, including three children and three women, were killed during air raids on several rebel-held neighbourhoods of Aleppo. The Observatory says the toll is likely to rise because rescue efforts are ongoing.

Ibrahim Alhaj, a member of the volunteer first responders known as the Syria Civil Defence, said 24 people were killed in the Aleppo strikes.

A raid also hit a medical team late Tuesday, killing four medics.

In a Skype interview with The New Arab, east Aleppo resident Zouhir al-Shimale said that since the morning most of the city's areas had been targeted.

Meanwhile, the civil defence workers in the Qadi Askar neighbourhood weaved through rubble in search of wounded residents in a row of buildings hit by the airstrikes.

In the rebel-held neighbourhood of Sukkari, Abu Ahmad cleared rubble and shattered glass from his doorstep after bombardment levelled the six-story building next door, killing his neighbours.

He had tea with the two brothers who lived in the building late the previous night.

"Just an hour after I left, a missile destroyed their whole building and they both died under the rubble," Abu Ahmad said. 

Russia and the United States negotiated the latest ceasefire plan, but Syria ended the truce on Monday following a US-led coalition strike on Syrian soldiers.

Shortly after the truce ended, a UN aid convoy was hit in an airstrike that US officials have blamed on Russia.