Damascus: At least 50 civilians are being treated after a suspected poison gas attack by Syrian rebel groups on the government-held Aleppo city in the country's north, according to Syrian state media.

The number of people reportedly affected continues to rise - Syrian state TV earlier said that 21 people had been injured on Saturday, but people continued to arrive at a hospital in Aleppo where state TV was airing live.

Doctors told state TV that most of those admitted to hospitals suffered from breathing problems and blurred vision. One doctor said two were in critical condition, including a child. State TV showed footage of medical professionals treating men and women on hospital beds.

Syrian rebels dismissed the government accusations they used poison gas.</s>DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) — The Latest on the Syrian conflict (all times local):

Syrian rebels have dismissed government accusations they used poison gas to attack government-held Aleppo city.

Rebel commander Abdel-Salam Abdel-Razak says the opposition doesn't possess poisonous gases or the capabilities to lob them. Abdel-Razak served in Syria's chemical weapons program before defecting to join the opposition in the early years of the conflict, which began in 2011.

Abdel-Razak tweeted that "These are lies" soon after reports emerged of an attack in Aleppo that injured dozens of people.

Rebel spokesman Mustafa Sejari dismisses the poison-gas claims. He says they came after government shells landed in rebel-held areas, violating a Russian-backed cease-fire. He says the government is trying to undermine the cease-fire.

A Syrian official says that at least 50 civilians were being treated Saturday following a suspected poison gas attack by Syrian rebel groups on the government-held Aleppo city in the country's north.

Syrian state TV previously said that 21 people had been injured, but people continued to arrive at a hospital in Aleppo where state TV was airing live.

Health official Haj Taha says at least 50 civilians have been injured.

Head of Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights Rami Abdurrahman said there was a stench of gas in Aleppo city after projectiles were fired.

Syrian state media is reporting that 21 civilians have been treated for breathing problems following a rebel attack it said involved projectiles filled with poisonous gas on the government-held city of Aleppo.

Syrian state TV aired footage late Saturday of the injured lying in hospital beds as doctors administered oxygen and other treatments.

State news agency SANA quoted a police officer in Aleppo saying the attack hit al-Khalidiya neighborhood. Syrian state TV later said the attack has also hit two other areas in the city and said a total of 21 people had been injured. State TV interviewed doctors in a hospital who said most people were suffering from breathing problems and blurred vision.

In the past, rebels have accused the government of using chlorine gas to attack opposition-held areas.

A joint team from the United Nations and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons accused Syria's government of using chlorine gas in at least two attacks in 2014 and 2015, and using the nerve agent sarin in an attack in April 2017 in the town of Khan Sheikhoun that killed about 100 people.

The UN-OPCW team also accused the Islamic State extremist group of using mustard gas twice in 2015 and 2016.</s>Damascus: At least 50 civilians are being treated after a suspected poison gas attack by Syrian rebel groups on the government-held Aleppo city in the country's north, according to Syrian state media.

The number of people reportedly affected continues to rise - Syrian state TV earlier said that 21 people had been injured on Saturday, but people continued to arrive at a hospital in Aleppo where state TV was airing live.

Doctors told state TV that most of those admitted to hospitals suffered from breathing problems and blurred vision. One doctor said two were in critical condition, including a child. State TV showed footage of medical professionals treating men and women on hospital beds.

Rami Abdurrahman, the head of Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said there was a stench of gas in Aleppo city after projectiles were fired.</s>At least 50 civilians were being treated Saturday following a suspected poison gas attack by Syrian rebel groups on the government-held Aleppo city in the country’s north, according to reports in Syrian state media.

READ MORE: Syrian government accused of chemical attack on rebels in Damascus killing at least 40

Most of those admitted to hospitals had breathing problems and blurred vision, doctors told state TV. One doctor said two were in critical condition, including a child. State TV showed footage of medical professionals treating men and women on hospital beds.

There was a stench of gas in Aleppo city after projectiles were fired, said Rami Abdurrahman, the head of Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Rebel commanders and opposition figures discredited the government reports, denying they lobbed gas into Aleppo and accusing Damascus of seeking to undermine an existing cease-fire and efforts to kickstart political talks. Earlier Saturday, government shelling of a rebel-held area in neighbouring Idlib province killed at least nine civilians.

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In Aleppo city, local governor Hussein Diab visited the injured at the hospital. He told state TV that 41 people had been admitted and accused rebels of using poisonous gas in the missiles they lobbed at the Aleppo neighborhood.

Health official Haj Taha later said the number of injured was up to 50, adding that symptoms suggest the gas used was chlorine. Further tests are needed, he said.

The projectiles landed in the al-Khalidiya neighbourhood, and wind caused gas to spread, Aleppo police chief Essam al-Shali told state TV. State TV later said the gas affected two other areas in the city. There are no deaths, al-Shali said.

READ MORE: Russia says U.K. staged fake chemical attack in Syria

One patient said a foul smell filled the air after projectiles were lobbed.

“There are often missiles on the city but this is the first time we smelled such a smell,” the patient said without giving his name.

State TV later said government troops retaliated, hitting the source of the attack. It didn’t elaborate.

A cease-fire in Aleppo and Idlib has been fraying in recent days. Aleppo has come under rebel attack in recent weeks, with missiles falling inside the city. The government has responded with counter attacks on rebel-held areas in the Aleppo countryside.

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Earlier Saturday, rescue works and the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said government shells landed in Jarjanaz, a rebel-held town in Idlib province, hitting students as they were leaving their school. The shelling killed eight, including six children, according to the civil defense team in the opposition-held area.

The opposition fighters don’t have chemical weapons or the means to lab them, rebel commander Abdel-Salam Abdel-Razek said. On Twitter, he accused the government of staging the attack to frame the rebels.

Rebel spokesman Musafa Sejari said the government is seeking to undermine the cease-fire deal.

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In the absence of independent monitors, it is difficult to corroborate gas attacks. But both sides of the conflict have accused each other throughout the war of using poison gas.

A joint team from the United Nations and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons accused Syria’s government of using chlorine gas in at least two attacks in 2014 and 2015, and the nerve agent sarin in an attack in April 2017 in the town of Khan Sheikhoun that killed about 100 people. The U.S. launched a series of strikes on Syrian government sites in retaliation for the attack in Khan Sheikhoun.

The UN-OPCW team also accused the Islamic State extremist group of using mustard gas twice in 2015 and 2016.

The government accused rebels of using gas in a 2013 attack on Khan al-Assal, a village southwest of Aleppo city, that killed 25 people.</s>At least 50 civilians are being treated after a suspected poison gas attack by Syrian rebel groups on the government-held Aleppo city in the country's north, according to reports in Syrian state media.

Most of those admitted to hospitals had breathing problems and blurred vision, doctors told state TV. One doctor said on Saturday two were in critical condition, including a child. State TV showed footage of medical professionals treating men and women on hospital beds.

There was a stench of gas in Aleppo city after projectiles were fired, said Rami Abdurrahman, the head of Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Rebel commanders and opposition figures discredited the government reports, denying they lobbed gas into Aleppo and accusing Damascus of seeking to undermine an existing cease-fire and efforts to kickstart political talks. Earlier on Saturday, government shelling of a rebel-held area in neighbouring Idlib province killed at least seven civilians.

In Aleppo city, local governor Hussein Diab visited the injured at the hospital. He told state TV that 41 people had been admitted and accused rebels of using poisonous gas in the missiles they lobbed at the Aleppo neighbourhood.

Health official Haj Taha later said the number of injured was up to 50, adding that symptoms suggest the gas used was chlorine. Further tests are needed, he said.

A cease-fire in Aleppo and Idlib has been fraying in recent days. Aleppo has come under rebel attack in recent weeks, with missiles falling inside the city. The government has responded with counter attacks on rebel-held areas in the Aleppo countryside.</s>Dear Reader, As you can imagine, more people are reading The Jerusalem Post than ever before. Nevertheless, traditional business models are no longer sustainable and high-quality publications, like ours, are being forced to look for new ways to keep going. Unlike many other news organizations, we have not put up a paywall. We want to keep our journalism open and accessible and be able to keep providing you with news and analyses from the frontlines of Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish World.

Syrian state media claimed on Saturday night that a mortar attack in West Aleppo injured dozens and that some had been treated for “toxic gases,” or chlorine chemical injuries after the attack. The Syrian regime said it responded to the attack, which comes amid a fragile ceasefire brokered by Turkey and Russia that is supposed to keep the front line quiet in northern Syria’s Idlib province. 



After 10 in the evening on Saturday, sources in Aleppo said they heard explosions in areas controlled by the Syrian government. SANA, the state news media, claimed that “terrorist organizations” targeted locals with “missiles containing chemical gases.” The attack “reaffirms the possession of terrorist organizations with toxic gases,” the report noted. RT Arabic, the Russian channel that supports Moscow and also Moscow’s Syrian regime ally, reported 55 had been injured. Sputnik news, which also supports Moscow, said the Syrian regime responded to the attack. 





The attack allegedly targeted an area called Nile Street and Al-Khalidiya in western Aleppo. Aleppo fell to the Syrian regime in the fall of 2016 after one of the most brutal and difficult battles of the Syrian civil war. The defeat of the rebellion in Aleppo was widely seen as a turning point in the conflict from which the Syrian opposition has never recovered. However, the Syrian rebels still control areas north of Aleppo and in Idlib province.Numerous sources on social media reported the attack on Saturday evening, claiming ambulances were heard and explosions. Like everything in the Syrian conflict however, the interpretation of the events is different on both sides. While the regime, the media and its supporters claim the “terrorists” among the rebels have launched a chemical weapons attack, those on the other side pointed out that the narrative of pro-regime media has changed over the last few hours, from reporting eight killed to none killed. Video posted online showed people flooding a hospital.The question now is how the regime and its allies, particularly Moscow and Tehran, will respond. The ceasefire signed in September required extremists to withdraw from the frontline in Idlib and for heavy weapons to be pulled back. However, in recent days there have been tensions, with Damascus and Moscow claiming that extremist groups such as Hayat Tahrir al-Sham have not pulled back. Tensions have boiled over into local clashes.On Friday, a Syrian journalist and activist named Raed Fares was assassinated south of Idlib . The claim by Damascus that terrorists have used chemical weapons is in line with the regime narrative that has claimed that many chemical attacks were not carried out by the regime, but were a “false flag” used by rebels to encourage international intervention in Syria. Russian media has warned of a “false flag” in Idlib, a claim seen as justifying a Syrian regime offensive.If Damascus seeks to pursue a major response it could force Turkey and Russia to intervene to maintain the ceasefire, or could push the area near Aleppo into heavier clashes.

Join Jerusalem Post Premium Plus now for just $5 and upgrade your experience with an ads-free website and exclusive content. Click here>></s>In this photo released by the Syrian official news agency SANA, shows a woman receiving oxygen through respirators following a suspected chemical attack on her town of al-Khalidiya, in Aleppo, Syria, Saturday, Nov. 24, 2018. Some 50 civilians were being treated following a suspected poison gas attack by Syrian rebel groups on the government-held Aleppo city in the country's north, according to Syrian state media. (SANA via AP)</s>BEIRUT (Reuters) - Shelling by insurgents wounded more than 100 people in a suspected toxic gas attack in Syria’s Aleppo, which a health official described as the first such assault in the city.

The shells caused dozens of people breathing problems on Saturday night in Aleppo, while government shelling killed nine people in a village in Idlib, a monitoring group said.

State news agency SANA said on Sunday 107 people were injured in Aleppo after militants hit three districts with projectiles containing gases that caused choking.

It marks the highest such casualty toll in Aleppo since government forces and their allies clawed back the city from rebels nearly two years ago.

Rebel officials denied using chemical weapons and accused the Damascus government of trying to frame them.

Moscow, a key Damascus ally, accused insurgents on Sunday of bombarding Aleppo with shells filled with chlorine gas, poisoning 46 people, including eight children.

The Russian defense ministry said the attack was launched from territory that former al-Qaeda militants control in the rebel stronghold of Idlib.

Russia also said it would talk to Turkey, which backs some rebel factions and has brokered a ceasefire with Moscow in the Idlib region.

“The explosive (shells) contain toxic gases that led to choking among civilians,” Aleppo police chief Issam al-Shilli told state media.

“They were taken to al-Razi hospital and Aleppo University Hospital for treatment as a result of the irritating substance they inhaled.”

Pictures and footage on SANA showed medical workers carrying patients on stretchers and helping them with oxygen masks.

“We can not know the kinds of gases but we suspected chlorine and treated patients on this basis because of the symptoms,” Zaher Batal, the head of the Aleppo Doctors Syndicate, told Reuters.

Batal said symptoms included difficulty breathing, eye inflammation, shivering and fainting. Hospitals had discharged many patients.

Batal called it the first such gas attack in Aleppo city in the conflict, which has raged for more than seven years.

Abdel-Salam Abdel-Razak, an official from the Nour el-Din al-Zinki insurgent faction, said rebels did not own chemical weapons or have the capacity to produce them.

“The criminal regime, under Russian instructions, is trying to accuse the rebels of using toxic substances in Aleppo. This is purely a lie,” he wrote on Twitter.</s>DAMASCUS, Syria — The Latest on the Syrian conflict (all times local):

Syrian state media is reporting that 21 civilians have been treated for breathing problems following a rebel attack it said involved projectiles filled with poisonous gas on the government-held city of Aleppo.

Syrian state TV aired footage late Saturday of the injured lying in hospital beds as doctors administered oxygen and other treatments.

State news agency SANA quoted a police officer in Aleppo saying the attack hit al-Khalidiya neighbourhood. Syrian state TV later said the attack has also hit two other areas in the city and said a total of 21 people had been injured. State TV interviewed doctors in a hospital who said most people were suffering from breathing problems and blurred vision.

In the past, rebels have accused the government of using chlorine gas to attack opposition-held areas.

A joint team from the United Nations and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons accused Syria’s government of using chlorine gas in at least two attacks in 2014 and 2015, and using the nerve agent sarin in an attack in April 2017 in the town of Khan Sheikhoun that killed about 100 people.

The UN-OPCW team also accused the Islamic State extremist group of using mustard gas twice in 2015 and 2016.</s>Russian warplanes attacked rebel-held areas in northern Syria for the first time in weeks on Sunday, as Syrian officials said more than 100 people were treated at hospitals for a suspected poison gas attack in the northern city of Aleppo that Damascus and Moscow blamed on rebels.

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The rebels, who have denied carrying out any poison gas attacks, accused the government of trying to undermine a truce reached by Russia and Turkey in September during a summit in the Russian city of Sochi.

The targeted area is rebel-held and home to extremist groups opposed to the truce such as the al-Qaida-linked Horas al-Din, which has described the deal as a “great conspiracy,” and the Ansar al-Din Front.

Russian military spokesman Major General Igor Konashenkov told reporters in Moscow that Russian warplanes destroyed militant positions in northern Syria blaming them for the attack with poison gas on Aleppo.

The latest wave of shelling and air strikes in northern Syria is the most serious violation of a truce reached by Russia and Turkey that brought relative calm to the country’s north for the past two months.

“The planes of Russia’s Aerospace Defense Forces carried out strikes on the detected artillery positions of terrorists in the area, from where the shelling of Aleppo civilians with chemical munitions was conducted late” MG Konashenkov said.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and the Thiqa News Agency, an activist collective, said warplanes pounded rebel-held areas west and south of Aleppo city. The air strikes were the first since the truce went into effect on September 17.

Syria’s Arab News Agency, SANA, said Syrian troops pounded rebel positions near Aleppo “inflicting heavy losses among terrorists.” SANA said the alleged chemical attack late on Saturday was carried out by “terrorist groups positioned in Aleppo countryside” that fired shells containing toxic gases on three neighbourhoods in Syria’s largest city.

Human Rights Watch’s Deputy Director for the Middle East and North Africa Lama Fakih said “serious reports of suspected chemical weapon attacks should not be left without investigation.”

She added that all parties, including the Syrian government and Russia, should facilitate an investigation by the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons into the suspected attack in Aleppo.

MG Konashenkov said earlier that Russian chemical weapons specialists have been dispatched to Aleppo.

Russia is a close ally of President Bashar Assad and has intervened in recent years to turn the tide of the civil war in his favour. “According to preliminary data, particularly the symptoms shown by the victims, the shells that bombarded residential areas of Aleppo were filled with chlorine gas,” MG Konashenkov said.

Syria’s forensic medicine general director, Zaher Hajo, told Associated Press that all but 15 of the 105 people who were treated have been discharged. He said two people who were in critical condition have improved.

The Observatory said 94 people were treated, with 31 remaining in hospitals. Turkey’s defence ministry in a statement said on Sunday Minister Hulusi Akar spoke with his Russian counterpart Sergey Shoygu about the recent developments in northern Syria.

The statement said the two exchanged views on “recent provocations that have been evaluated as aimed to undermine the Sochi agreement may continue and the need to be ready.”

A joint team from the United Nations and the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons accused Syria’s government of using chlorine gas in at least two attacks in 2014 and 2015, and the nerve agent sarin in an attack in April 2017 in the town of Khan Sheikhoun that killed about 100 people. The UN-OPCW team also accused the Islamic State extremist group of using mustard gas twice, in 2015 and 2016.

The Britain-based Observatory, which relies on a network of activists and contacts throughout Syria, said the air strikes hit the Rashideen district on the western outskirts of Aleppo and the village of Khan Touman south of the city.

The truce brokered by Russia and Turkey, which supports the rebels, has been repeatedly violated, but until Sunday there had been no air strikes.

Syrian state media meanwhile reported that rebels shelled the Christian village of Mahradeh in northwestern Syria, causing material damage but no casualties.

In Jordan, local media reported that troops opened fire on six people trying to infiltrate the border from Syria killing four and wounding two.
Syrian state media report that more than 50 civilians are injured in a suspected poison gas attack by Syrian rebels on Aleppo.