BEIRUT — Syrian government forces advanced deep into eastern Aleppo on Sunday amid a swift collapse of rebel defenses inside the divided northern city, threatening to cleave the opposition's enclave between its northern and southern parts.

The advance into the city's Sakhour neighborhood brings the military within less than one kilometer (0.6 miles) of commanding a corridor in eastern Aleppo for the first time since rebels swept into the city in 2012, said Turkey's state-run Anadolu news agency.

Residents in the east of the city expressed distress among opposition circles on social media and in messaging groups.

"The situation in besieged Aleppo (is) very very bad, thousands of eastern residents are moving to the western side of the city," said Khaled Khatib, a photographer for the Syrian Civil Defense search-and-rescue group.

"Aleppo is going to die," he posted on Twitter.

Syrian state media reported government forces seized the Jabal Badro neighborhood and entered Sakhour Sunday after it took control of the Masaken Hanano neighborhood Saturday.

Syrian state TV broadcast a video Saturday showing a teary reunion between a soldier and his family after nearly five years apart, according to the report. It said the family had been trapped in Masaken Hanano.

The Lebanese Al-Manar TV channel reported from the neighborhood Sunday morning, showing workers and soldiers clearing debris against a backdrop of bombed-out buildings on both sides of a wide avenue. Al-Manar is operated by Hezbollah, the Lebanese militant group aligned with the Syrian government.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors the war through local contacts, also reported the advance. It said some 1,700 civilians had fled to areas under government control.

The government's push, reportedly backed by thousands of Shiite militia fighters from Lebanon, Iraq, and Iran, and at times by the Russian air force, has laid waste to Aleppo's eastern neighborhoods.

Aleppo used to be Syria's largest city and commerce capital before its neighborhoods were devastated by the country's more than five-year-long civil war.

An estimated quarter-million people are trapped in wretched conditions in the city's rebel-held eastern districts since the government sealed its siege of the enclave in late August. Food supplies are running perilously low, the U.N. warned Thursday, and a relentless air assault by government forces has damaged or destroyed every hospital in the area.

The U.N.'s child agency warned Sunday that nearly 500,000 children were now living under siege in Syria, cut off from food and medical aid, mostly in areas under government control. That figure has doubled in less than a year.

Many are now spending their days underground, as hospitals, schools and homes remain vulnerable to aerial bombardment.

"Children are being killed and injured, too afraid to go to school or even play, surviving with little food and hardly any medicine," said UNICEF Executive Director Anthony Lake. "This is no way to live - and too many are dying."

Activists also reported Sunday tens of civilian casualties from a presumed government or Russian airstrike on a village outside Aleppo.

The Local Coordination Committees activist network in Syria reported 15 civilians killed in a Russian airstrike on the village of Anjara, controlled by the opposition in the western Aleppo countryside, and tens of others wounded. Activists usually identify planes by their silhouettes and home base.

The Britain-based Observatory said the strike was accompanied by raids on other opposition-held villages in the Aleppo countryside.

Meanwhile, Anadolu also reported Sunday that the Islamic State group had used chemical weapons against Turkish-backed Syrian opposition fighters in northern Syria, wounding 22. The report cited a statement by the chief of general staff's office. The report could not be immediately verified independently.

Later Sunday, Turkey's emergency relief directorate, which investigated the claim, said it found no trace of chemical warfare. The military was not available for further comment.

Associated Press writer Cinar Kiper in Istanbul contributed to this report.</s>BEIRUT -- Thousands of Syrian civilians fled fierce fighting in eastern Aleppo on Sunday as government forces moved to slice the city's last rebel-held stronghold in half.

Rebel defenses collapsed as government forces pushed into the city's Sakhour neighborhood, coming within about a half-mile of commanding a corridor in eastern Aleppo for the first time since rebels swept into the city in 2012, according to Syrian state media and the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group.

Kurdish-led forces operating autonomously of the rebels and the government seized the Bustan al-Basha neighborhood, allowing thousands of civilians to flee the decimated district to the predominantly Kurdish Sheikh Maqsoud, in the city's north, according to Ahmad Hiso Araj, an official with the Syrian Democratic Forces.

The government's push -- backed by thousands of Shiite militia fighters from Lebanon, Iraq, and Iran, and under the occasional cover of the Russian airstrikes -- has laid waste to Aleppo's eastern neighborhoods.

At least 500 people have been killed and more than 1,000 wounded in a 13-day offensive led by President Bashar al-Assad's troops on the east side of the city.

An estimated quarter-million people have been trapped in wretched conditions in the city's rebel-held eastern districts since the government's siege of the enclave in late August. Food supplies are running perilously low, the U.N. warned Thursday, and a relentless air assault by Syrian government forces has damaged or destroyed every hospital in the area.

"The situation in besieged Aleppo [is] very very bad, thousands of eastern residents are moving to the western side of the city," said Khaled Khatib, a photographer for the Syrian Civil Defense search-and-rescue group, also known as the White Helmets.

"Aleppo is going to die," he posted on Twitter.

It was unclear Sunday how long rebel forces could hold out in the final district connecting their territory north to south. "We are in the process of repelling the onslaught and fortifying our defense lines," said Yasser al-Youssef, a spokesman for the Nour al-Din al-Zinki Brigade, one of the rebel groups.

"All I can see is Assad's forces advancing. People have been running all day. It's chaos," said Ismail Abdullah, a volunteer with the White Helmets.

The Syrian Observatory, which monitors the conflict through a network of local contacts, said around 1,700 civilians had escaped to government-controlled areas and another 2,500 escaped to Kurdish authorities. Wissam Zarqa, an English teacher in eastern Aleppo and an outspoken government opponent, said some families would stay put in the face of advancing government forces.

Syrian state media reported government forces had seized the Jabal Badro neighborhood and entered Sakhour on Sunday after the government took control of the Masaken Hanano neighborhood Saturday.

Masaken Hanano had been the largest rebel-held district of Aleppo, the city that was formerly Syria's largest city and commerce capital. The neighborhood was the first to slip from government control. Its fall underscored how far the tide has turned in favor of Assad's forces, 5½ years into a war that has killed a half million people and displaced most of Syria's prewar population.

On Syrian state television, families were seen waiting for green buses to leave for government-held areas. Ragged from exhaustion, some carried the young and the elderly on their shoulders. Their destination was unknown.

Syrian state TV had earlier broadcast a video showing a teary reunion between a soldier and his family after nearly five years apart. The report said the family had been trapped in Masaken Hanano.

The Lebanese Al-Manar TV channel reported from the neighborhood Sunday morning, showing workers and soldiers clearing debris against a backdrop of bombed-out buildings on both sides of a wide thoroughfare. Al-Manar is operated by Hezbollah, the Lebanese militant group aligned with the Syrian government.

The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces' advance into Bustan al-Basha dealt the opposition a further blow.

Rebels and opposition figures have long accused the Syrian Democratic Forces and its predecessor groups of conspiring with the government to quash a nationwide revolt.

Araj denied there was any coordination between government and Kurdish-led forces.

"We were responding to calls from residents in Bustan al-Basha to secure the neighborhood," he said. He added that the Syrian Democratic Forces had entered the area handily as rebel militants fled.

Turkish news agency Anadolu also reported Sunday that the Islamic State extremist group had used chemical weapons against Turkish-backed Syrian opposition fighters in northern Syria, wounding 22. The report cited a statement by the chief of general staff's office. The report could not be immediately verified independently.

Later Sunday, Turkey's emergency relief directorate, which investigated the claim, said it found no trace of chemical warfare. The military was not available for further comment.

Information for this article was contributed by Philip Issa and Cinar Kiper of The Associated Press; and by Louisa Loveluck of The Washington Post.</s>Simultaneous advances by Syrian government and Kurdish-led forces into eastern Aleppo on Sunday

BEIRUT (AP) — Simultaneous advances by Syrian government and Kurdish-led forces into eastern Aleppo on Sunday set off a tide of displacement inside the divided city, with thousands of residents evacuating their premises, and threatened to cleave the opposition's enclave.

Rebel defenses collapsed as government forces pushed into the city's Sakhour neighborhood, coming within one kilometer (0.6 miles) of commanding a corridor in eastern Aleppo for the first time since rebels swept into the city in 2012, according to Syrian state media and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group.

Kurdish-led forces operating autonomously of the rebels and the government meanwhile seized the Bustan al-Basha neighborhood, allowing thousands of civilians to flee the decimated district to the predominantly Kurdish Sheikh Maqsoud, in the city's north, according to Ahmad Hiso Araj, an official with the Syrian Democratic Forces.

The government's push, backed by thousands of Shiite militia fighters from Lebanon, Iraq, and Iran, and under the occasional cover of the Russian air force, has laid waste to Aleppo's eastern neighborhoods.

An estimated quarter-million people are trapped in wretched conditions in the city's rebel-held eastern districts since the government sealed its siege of the enclave in late August. Food supplies are running perilously low, the U.N. warned Thursday, and a relentless air assault by government forces has damaged or destroyed every hospital in the area.

Residents in east Aleppo said in distressed messages on social media that thousands of people were fleeing to the city's government-controlled western neighborhoods, away from the government's merciless assault, or deeper into opposition-held eastern Aleppo.

"The situation in besieged Aleppo (is) very very bad, thousands of eastern residents are moving to the western side of the city," said Khaled Khatib, a photographer for the Syrian Civil Defense search-and-rescue group, also known as the White Helmets.

"Aleppo is going to die," he posted on Twitter.

The Britain-based Observatory, which monitors the conflict through a network of local contacts, said around 1,700 civilians had escaped to government-controlled areas and another 2,500 to Kurdish authorities.

More than 250 civilians have been killed in the government's bombardment of eastern Aleppo over past 13 days, according to the Observatory.

Locals reported thousands more were moving within the eastern neighborhoods, away from the front lines, but staying inside areas of opposition control.

"The conditions are terrifying" said 28-year-old Modar Sakho, a nurse in eastern Aleppo.

Wissam Zarqa, an English teacher in eastern Aleppo and outspoken government opponent, said some families would stay put in the face of advancing government forces.

Syrian state media reported government forces had seized the Jabal Badro neighborhood and entered Sakhour Sunday after it took control of the Masaken Hanano neighborhood Saturday.

Syrian state TV broadcast a video Saturday showing a teary reunion between a soldier and his family after nearly five years apart, according to the report. It said the family had been trapped in Masaken Hanano.

The Lebanese Al-Manar TV channel reported from the neighborhood Sunday morning, showing workers and soldiers clearing debris against a backdrop of bombed-out buildings on both sides of a wide thoroughfare. Al-Manar is operated by Hezbollah, the Lebanese militant group aligned with the Syrian government.

The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces' advance into Bustan al-Basha dealt the opposition a further blow.

Rebels and opposition figures have long accused the SDF and its predecessor groups of conspiring with the government to quash a nationwide revolt.

Araj denied there was any coordination between government and Kurdish-led forces.

"We were responding to calls from residents in Bustan al-Basha to secure the neighborhood," he said. He added the SDF had entered the area handily as rebel militants fled.

Aleppo used to be Syria's largest city and commerce capital before its neighborhoods were devastated by the country's more than five-year-long civil war.

The U.N.'s child agency warned Sunday that nearly 500,000 children were now living under siege in Syria, cut off from food and medical aid, mostly in areas under government control. That figure has doubled in less than a year.

Many are now spending their days underground, as hospitals, schools and homes remain vulnerable to aerial bombardment. "Children are being killed and injured, too afraid to go to school or even play, surviving with little food and hardly any medicine," said UNICEF Executive Director Anthony Lake. "This is no way to live — and too many are dying." Activists also reported Sunday tens of civilian casualties from a presumed government or Russian airstrike on a village outside Aleppo. The Local Coordination Committees activist network in Syria reported 15 civilians killed in a Russian airstrike on the village of Anjara, controlled by the opposition in the western Aleppo countryside, and tens of others wounded. Activists usually identify planes by their silhouettes and home base. The Observatory said the strike was accompanied by raids on other opposition-held villages in the Aleppo countryside. Meanwhile, Anadolu also reported Sunday that the Islamic State group had used chemical weapons against Turkish-backed Syrian opposition fighters in northern Syria, wounding 22. The report cited a statement by the chief of general staff's office. The report could not be immediately verified independently. Later Sunday, Turkey's emergency relief directorate, which investigated the claim, said it found no trace of chemical warfare. The military was not available for further comment. Elsewhere in Syria, Israeli aircraft struck a machine gun-mounted vehicle inside the country Sunday, killing four Islamic State-affiliated militants on board after they opened fire on a military patrol on the Israeli side of the Golan Heights, according to the Israeli military. Associated Press writer Cinar Kiper in Istanbul contributed to this report.</s>Syrian government forces and their allies captured another major eastern Aleppo neighbourhood and several smaller areas Monday, putting much of the northern part of Aleppo’s besieged rebel-held areas under government control for the first time in four years, state media reported.

Russia’s Defence Ministry said the areas captured by Syrian government troops include 10 neighbourhoods and over 3,000 buildings in the past few days. The ministry added in a statement that more than 100 rebels have laid down their arms and exited the Syrian city’s eastern suburbs.

Aleppo, Syria’s largest city and former commercial centre, has been contested since the summer of 2012 and a rebel defeat in the city would be a turning point in the five-year conflict. If Syrian forces capture all of east Aleppo, President Bashar Assad’s government will be in control of the country’s four largest cities as well as the coastal region.

The government’s push, backed by thousands of Shiite militia fighters from Lebanon, Iraq, and Iran, and under the cover of the Russian air force, has laid waste to Aleppo’s eastern neighbourhoods. Medical and food supplies have run short in recent weeks as Syrian warplanes pounded the besieged enclave, rendering all remaining functioning hospitals out of service.

Simultaneous advances by Syrian government and Kurdish-led forces on Sunday set off a tide of displacement inside the divided city, with thousands of residents evacuating their premises to safety in government and Kurdish-controlled areas of the city since Saturday.

Rebel defences swiftly collapsed as government forces pushed into the Hanano district on Saturday, the first time they had pushed this far into eastern Aleppo since 2012.

With Monday’s capture of Sakhour, the rebels are now left boxed in mostly in central and southeastern Aleppo, encircled by government territory on all sides.

Rami Abdurrahman, who heads the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said Syrian government forces have captured some 10 neighbourhoods over the past few days, putting nearly 30 per cent of Aleppo’s formerly rebel-held neighbourhoods under state control.

State TV said 3,000 people, half of them children, have fled over the past few hours. It showed men, women and children in green buses being taken to government-controlled areas.

“It is stinging cold, food is scarce and people are shaken in the streets,” Mohammad Zein Khandaqani, a member of the Medical Council in Aleppo, told The Associated Press in a voice text message from east Aleppo.

He added that some residents are taking refuge in mosques while others moved to homes of displaced people in safer areas.

He said although thousands of people have fled to government or Kurdish-controlled areas in Aleppo, many stayed because they are wanted by the state.

Ahmad Araj, senior official with the Syrian National Democratic Coalition that consists of Arab and Kurdish groups, said 8,000 people have fled to the Kurdish-control Sheikh Maqsoud district so far, calling on international aid organizations to help those who are now displaced.

The Russian Defence Ministry also said Syrian government troops had pushed the rebels from Qadisia which it described as the “key neighbourhood of eastern Aleppo.”</s>(CNN) Up to 16,000 people have fled the violence in Syria's war-ravaged eastern Aleppo, with food stocks "practically finished" and every hospital bombed beyond use, the UN's humanitarian chief said Tuesday.

The Syrian regime continued to pound eastern Aleppo with airstrikes overnight, as its troops tore through the territory in an operation to retake the enclave after more than four years of rebel control.

Displaced Syrian families at a camp in government-held Jibreen in Aleppo on Sunday.

"I am extremely concerned about the fate of civilians as a result of the deeply alarming and chilling situation unfolding in Aleppo city," UN humanitarian chief Stephen O'Brien said in a statement.

"Initial reports indicate that up to 16,000 people have been displaced, many into uncertain and precarious situations. It is likely that thousands more will have no choice but to flee should fighting continue to spread and intensify over the coming days."

More than 200,000 people are believed to still be in eastern Aleppo, many of them trapped. Before the evacuations in recent days, UNICEF said there were around 100,000 children there.

Government forces and armed paramilitary groups loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad began a renewed push toward eastern Aleppo on November 15, as regime warplanes continued to pound the area to flush out rebels and civilians.

An activist from the Aleppo Media Center said at least 25 people had been killed and many more injured overnight as the regime dropped parachute bombs in the Bab al-Nayreb neighborhood.

"There are no modes of transportation and no vehicles in the streets, so civilians are fleeing and walking close to 8 or 9 kilometers on foot, carrying what they can and their children, and fleeing towards the western parts of Aleppo," the activist told CNN.

The last UN rations in Aleppo were distributed on November 13, and UN humanitarian adviser Jan Egeland warned last week that people in the area were on the brink of starvation.

Eastern Aleppo has become the epicenter of Syria's civil war, much of it decimated in regime strikes backed by Russian air power.

Assad has vowed to take the whole of Aleppo, which has for years been divided between the largely regime-held west and rebel-held east.

The government has besieged the east a number of times, cutting off both the rebels and civilians from the outside world, leaving communities on the brink of starvation -- without sufficient food, clean water, fuel and medical supplies.

"I ask all parties to the conflict to restore basic humanity in Syria," the UN's O'Brien said.

"I call on them to lift sieges, ensure that they do not target civilians and civilian infrastructure, and that they allow humanitarian organizations safe and unimpeded access to bring life-saving help to those displaced or under siege."

Many people remaining in the eastern part of the city have been too afraid to use the government's "human corridors," fearing reprisal once they escape. Others say the rebels forced them to stay.

Taking all of Aleppo would mark a turning point in the Syrian war -- the city is the last urban rebel stronghold in the country. Seizing it would put the regime back in control of all four major cities.

Some observers have suggested it would be the beginning of the end of the uprising that began in 2011.

A solution to the war has evaded the international community for years. Russia and the US have both been drawn in, often standing on opposing sides of the conflict.

Russia has used its veto power in the UN Security Council several times to shoot down proposed resolutions on the conflict.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault called on the Security Council to immediately meet and examine the situation.

"More than ever, there is an urgent need for a cessation of hostilities and unhindered access to humanitarian assistance," Ayrault said in a statement, adding he would meet with the head of Aleppo's district councils, Brita Hagi Hasan, on Wednesday in Paris.

O'Brien also called for a political solution, saying that "the people of Syria have suffered far too much and for far too long."

"More than anything, I hope a path towards a political solution can be found soon so that we can give some semblance of hope to the many millions of Syrian families who tonight are hungry, sick, and fearing for their lives," he said.</s>ALEPPO, Syria: Government forces have retaken a third of rebel-held territory in Aleppo, forcing nearly 10,000 civilians to flee as they pressed their offensive to retake Syria’s second city.

In a major breakthrough in the push to retake the whole city, regime forces captured six rebel-held districts of eastern Aleppo over the weekend, including Masaken Hanano, the biggest of those in eastern Aleppo.

On Sunday, the 13th day of the operation, they also took control of the adjacent neighborhoods of Jabal Badra and Baadeeen and captured three others, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Inzarat, Al-Sakan al-Shaabi and Ain al-Tall have all returned to regime hands and government forces have made large forays into Sakhur and nearby Haidariya, the monitor said.

It said government forces are “in control of most of the northern part” of Aleppo.

“The rebels have lost at least 30 percent of the territory they once controlled in Aleppo,” Observatory chief Rami Abdel Rahman said.

The regime gains came as its aircraft pounded rebel positions and amid heavy clashes between the opposition and forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad in the strategic Sakhur district.

Masaken Hanano was the first district the rebels took in the summer of 2012 in a move that divided the city into a rebel-held east and a regime-controlled west.

Around 250,000 civilians besieged for months in the east have faced serious food and fuel shortages.

The Observatory said that nearly 10,000 civilians had fled east Aleppo overnight on Saturday — at least 6,000 to the Kurdish-controlled northern district of Sheikh Maksoud, with the rest fleeing to government-held areas.

“It is the first exodus of this kind from east Aleppo since 2012,” Abdel Rahman said.

Regime sights on Sakhur

 Syrian state television broadcast images of a crowd of civilians including women and children gathered around green buses that it said had come to pick them up in Masaken Hanano.

One woman was shown pushing a stroller and many others carried plastic bags on their heads as bombardment was heard in the distance.

Official media said they were taken “by the army to safe areas.”

Yasser al-Youssef, from the rebel group Nureddin al-Zinki, said opposition fighters were consolidating their positions in Sakhur.

“We are strengthening our positions to defend the city and residents, but the aircraft are destroying everything methodically, area by area,” he said of a regime campaign of air strikes.

Sakhur lies on a stretch of just 1.5 kilometers (less than a mile) between west Aleppo and Masaken Hanano, now both regime-controlled.

If the regime takes control of Sakhur, east Aleppo would be split in two from north to south, dealing a further blow to the armed opposition.

The latest regime push comes after days of intense bombardment on the east, which has been pounded with air strikes, shelling and barrel bombs.

On Saturday, dozens of families fled Sakhur and Haidariya as regime raids and artillery killed at least 18 civilians in several districts, the Britain-based Observatory said.

At least 225 civilians, including 27 children, have been killed since the government’s latest assault on east Aleppo began on November 15.

IS chemical attack

 Rebel forces also intensified rocket attacks on western districts overnight, killing at least four civilians and wounding dozens, the Observatory said.

Such attacks have killed a total of 27 civilians since the offensive began, among them 11 children.

The United Nations has a plan to deliver aid to Aleppo and evacuate the sick and wounded, which rebel factions have approved but which Damascus has not yet agreed. Guarantees are also needed from regime ally Russia.

Once a commercial and industrial hub, Aleppo has seen some of the worst fighting in Syria’s nearly six-year war.

The conflict broke out in 2011 with the brutal repression of anti-government protests, and has since evolved into a complex war involving different factions and foreign powers.

On Sunday, the Turkish army said that 22 pro-Ankara Syrian rebels were hit by a chemical gas attack from Islamic State group jihadists in northern Syria.

The Turkish army is backing the Syrian fighters in an unprecedented cross-border operation it says is targeting both IS and the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) militia, which Ankara considers to be a “terrorist” group.

The YPG is a key component of a US-backed Arab-Kurdish alliance fighting to oust IS from its de facto Syria capital of Raqa, after the jihadist group overran large parts of Syria and Iraq in 2014.

Syria’s war has killed more than 300,000 people and displaced more than half the population.</s>BEIRUT (Reuters) - The Syrian army said it had taken control of an important district in rebel-held eastern Aleppo on Saturday after fierce fighting, with rebels blaming intense air strikes and lack of hospitals for their collapsing frontline.

Government forces advanced with a ground and air assault on the edge of the besieged eastern half of the city, a move the rebels say is designed to split their most important urban stronghold in two.

Aleppo, which was Syria's biggest city before the start of a civil war that has killed hundreds of thousands of people, is divided between the government-held west and rebel-held east, where U.N. officials say at least 250,000 people are under siege.

Capturing all of Aleppo would be a major victory for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad after six and a half years of fighting.

The army said in a statement it had, alongside its allies, taken full control over the Hanano housing district, which is on the northeast frontline of the eastern sector.

"Engineering teams are removing mines and improvised explosive devices planted by terrorists in the squares and streets," the statement said. The Syrian government calls all forces fighting against it terrorists.

An official in an Aleppo rebel group said a map circulated by pro-government media showing government forces in control of the Hanano area was largely accurate.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a monitoring organization based in Britain, said the army had established control over Hanano, which was the first part of Aleppo taken over by armed opposition groups in 2012.

A renewed air assault on residential and frontline parts of east Aleppo began last Tuesday after a weeks-long pause in air strikes and shelling there.

"The revolutionaries are fighting fiercely but the volume of bombardments and the intensity of the battles, the dead and the wounded, and the lack of hospitals, are all playing a role in the collapse of these frontlines," said an official from Jabha Shamiya, one of the biggest groups fighting against Assad in northern Syria. Some of its members are fighting in Hanano.

He condemned the "international silence" and said the government and its allies were trying to exploit the period before the next U.S. administration took over.

"The Iranians, Russians and regime know there is a vacuum and they are trying to exploit it using all means," he said. "We are in touch with the friendly states but unfortunately Aleppo is being left to be slaughtered."

Yasser al-Yousef, from the political office of the Nour al-Din al-Zinki rebel group, said insurgents had fought fiercely for more than 48 hours to defend Hanano and the southern front of east Aleppo from heavy government bombardment.

A Syrian state television reporter broadcast live from a part of Hanano on Saturday as government forces sought to establish full control over the area. Gunshots could be heard and behind him damaged buildings and rising smoke could be seen.

Rebels say much of Hanano has been empty of residents for some months.

Syrian state media said the army had secured the safe passage of at least 150 people out of Hanano, and showed pictures of people it said were evacuated residents in a reception center.

In the 12 days since the renewed bombardment on east Aleppo, at least 201 civilians, including 27 children, have died in the besieged sector, the Observatory said. There were 134 rebel fighter deaths.

The monitor also documented 19 civilian deaths, including 11 children, and dozens of injuries as a result of rebel shelling of government-held west Aleppo. Rebel shelling into the Sheikh Maqsoud district, which is under the control of the Kurdish YPG militia, has killed three people, it said.

Syrian state news agency SANA said three people died and 15 were injured on Saturday when rebels fired rockets into government-held west Aleppo.</s>Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption East Aleppo resident says he would rather die than return to government controlled Syria

Syrian government forces have captured more than a third of rebel-held territory in eastern Aleppo.

The advance, after heavy bombing from the air, is a major blow for the armed opponents of President Bashar al-Assad.

State TV said government troops were dismantling mines and explosives and continuing their advance.

Thousands of civilians have fled the besieged districts after a weekend of heavy fighting. Hundreds of families have been displaced.

What are the latest developments?

Rebel fighters have been driven out of more neighbourhoods of their long-held enclave in eastern Aleppo, as Syrian government forces continue to advance.

After further fighting on Monday, the rebels are reported to have lost all of the northern neighbourhoods they controlled before the weekend, leaving them with under two-thirds of the territory they had in the city.

Two rebel officials told Reuters their forces had withdrawn to a more defendable front line after government advances risked splitting the rebel-held area in two.

Syrian government troops now control the section of east Aleppo north of the Sakhour highway, according to monitors.

Russia's defence ministry says Syrian government troops have captured 12 districts, or 40% of the territory, from the rebels.

It says that more than 100 rebels have laid down their arms and left the city.

Aerial bombardment of rebel-held areas was continuing on Monday, according to the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

The Syrian army and its allies launched a major offensive to retake control of Aleppo in September.

What has happened to residents?

Image copyright The Rumaf via AP Image caption This woman and her young child were among those fleeing to the Sheikh Maqsoud area

Thousands of residents of east Aleppo have fled to areas controlled by government forces and Kurdish groups since the fighting intensified on Saturday.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said as many as 10,000 residents fled to government-controlled western areas and a Kurdish-run northern district.

State media showed men, women and children being transported to government-held areas on green buses.

Kurdish groups who control the Sheikh Maqsoud area of Aleppo provided images showing people fleeing the rebel-held neighbourhoods into a Kurdish-controlled district.

Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption UNHCR spokesperson describes on Radio 4's Today the severity of the humanitarian crisis in Aleppo

A spokesman for the Syrian Kurdish PYD party told Reuters that 6,000-10,000 people had fled into the district.

Scott Craig, the spokesperson for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Syria, told the BBC that there were 250,000 people in need of assistance in eastern Aleppo, 100,000 of them children. Food supplies were gone, he said.

"The situation on the ground in eastern Aleppo is almost beyond the imagination of those of us who are not there," Mr Craig said.

Warning of a humanitarian disaster, a volunteer rescue service known as the White Helmets said it had run out of fuel reserves needed to reach people caught in the onslaught.

On Sunday, seven-year-old Bana Alabed, who has gathered thousands of Twitter followers with her tweets from Aleppo, said her home in the east of the city had been bombed.

Image copyright @AlabedBana

On Monday morning, her account tweeted:

"Under heavy bombardments now. In between death and life now, please keep praying for us."

Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Meet Bana Alabed, the seven-year-old girl who has been tweeting from war-torn Aleppo

Last week the United Nations' humanitarian chief, Stephen O'Brien, said that hundreds of civilians had been killed or injured since the bombardment of eastern Aleppo resumed six days earlier.

He also highlighted deaths and injuries resulting from mortar and rocket attacks from rebel-held areas into western Aleppo.

Why has this happened now - and why does it matter?

This advance follows two weeks of relentless aerial bombardment, as the government and its allies renewed their assault on the rebel-held portion of Aleppo.

It followed a three-week pause in the Russian and Syrian bombing of the area, which ended on 15 November.

There are no fully-functioning hospitals left in the rebel-held territory and food ran out earlier in November.

Since the start of this month's offensive, pro-government forces have conducted 2,000 airstrikes, bombing the city with some 7,000 artillery rounds as well as ballistic missiles, cluster munitions and chlorine gas, according to the White Helmets rescue group. The BBC has not been able to verify these figures.

Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Aleppo: Key battleground in Syria's civil war

UN envoy Staffan de Mistura estimated last month that there were 8,000 rebel fighters in eastern Aleppo.

Retaking the whole of Aleppo, Syria's second largest city, is a key aim of the Syrian government. The east of Aleppo has been held by rebel factions opposed to President Bashar al-Assad for the past four years.

Government forces have taken more and more territory from them since Russia intervened to back its ally, President Assad, in September 2015.

Iranian-backed militias and Russian air strikes have helped Syrian government forces to break the deadlock.

Russia says its air force is active in other parts of the country, but has not operated over Aleppo since the pause.

Analysis - by Jonathan Marcus, BBC diplomatic correspondent

The tide is clearly turning in Aleppo in favour of the Assad regime - raising serious questions about the ability of the disparate rebel groupings to maintain a significant area of control in northern Syria.

The recapture of the city would be an important symbolic achievement for President Assad - underlining the fact that despite all the calls for his departure, Russian and Iranian support has been able not just to maintain him in power, but has enabled the regime to go onto the offensive.

Indeed, external military support has been crucial. After years of gruelling attritional combat the regular Syrian army, despite new arms supplies from Moscow, is a shadow of its former self.

The battle for Aleppo has depended upon air power and a variety of pro-Iranian militias, including Hezbollah fighters on the ground.

This has cemented Iran's key role in the conflict, which may have consequences in the future.</s>BEIRUT — Simultaneous advances by Syrian government and Kurdish-led forces into eastern Aleppo on Sunday set off a tide of displacement inside the divided city, with thousands of residents evacuating their premises, and threatened to cleave the opposition's enclave.

Rebel defenses collapsed as government forces pushed into the city's Sakhour neighborhood, coming within one kilometer (0.6 miles) of commanding a corridor in eastern Aleppo for the first time since rebels swept into the city in 2012, according to Syrian state media and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group.

Kurdish-led forces operating autonomously of the rebels and the government meanwhile seized the Bustan al-Basha neighborhood, allowing thousands of civilians to flee the decimated district to the predominantly Kurdish Sheikh Maqsoud, in the city's north, according to Ahmad Hiso Araj, an official with the Syrian Democratic Forces.

The government's push, backed by thousands of Shiite militia fighters from Lebanon, Iraq, and Iran, and under the occasional cover of the Russian air force, has laid waste to Aleppo's eastern neighborhoods.

An estimated quarter-million people are trapped in wretched conditions in the city's rebel-held eastern districts since the government sealed its siege of the enclave in late August. Food supplies are running perilously low, the U.N. warned Thursday, and a relentless air assault by government forces has damaged or destroyed every hospital in the area.

Residents in east Aleppo said in distressed messages on social media that thousands of people were fleeing to the city's government-controlled western neighborhoods, away from the government's merciless assault, or deeper into opposition-held eastern Aleppo.

"The situation in besieged Aleppo (is) very very bad, thousands of eastern residents are moving to the western side of the city," said Khaled Khatib, a photographer for the Syrian Civil Defense search-and-rescue group, also known as the White Helmets.

"Aleppo is going to die," he posted on Twitter.

The Britain-based Observatory, which monitors the conflict through a network of local contacts, said around 1,700 civilians had escaped to government-controlled areas and another 2,500 to Kurdish authorities.

More than 250 civilians have been killed in the government's bombardment of eastern Aleppo over past 13 days, according to the Observatory.

Locals reported thousands more were moving within the eastern neighborhoods, away from the front lines, but staying inside areas of opposition control.

"The conditions are terrifying" said 28-year-old Modar Sakho, a nurse in eastern Aleppo.

Wissam Zarqa, an English teacher in eastern Aleppo and outspoken government opponent, said some families would stay put in the face of advancing government forces.

Syrian state media reported government forces had seized the Jabal Badro neighborhood and entered Sakhour Sunday after it took control of the Masaken Hanano neighborhood Saturday.

Syrian state TV broadcast a video Saturday showing a teary reunion between a soldier and his family after nearly five years apart, according to the report. It said the family had been trapped in Masaken Hanano.

The Lebanese Al-Manar TV channel reported from the neighborhood Sunday morning, showing workers and soldiers clearing debris against a backdrop of bombed-out buildings on both sides of a wide thoroughfare. Al-Manar is operated by Hezbollah, the Lebanese militant group aligned with the Syrian government.

The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces' advance into Bustan al-Basha dealt the opposition a further blow.

Rebels and opposition figures have long accused the SDF and its predecessor groups of conspiring with the government to quash a nationwide revolt.

Araj denied there was any coordination between government and Kurdish-led forces.

"We were responding to calls from residents in Bustan al-Basha to secure the neighborhood," he said. He added the SDF had entered the area handily as rebel militants fled.

Aleppo used to be Syria's largest city and commerce capital before its neighborhoods were devastated by the country's more than five-year-long civil war.

The U.N.'s child agency warned Sunday that nearly 500,000 children were now living under siege in Syria, cut off from food and medical aid, mostly in areas under government control. That figure has doubled in less than a year.

Many are now spending their days underground, as hospitals, schools and homes remain vulnerable to aerial bombardment.

"Children are being killed and injured, too afraid to go to school or even play, surviving with little food and hardly any medicine," said UNICEF Executive Director Anthony Lake. "This is no way to live - and too many are dying."

Activists also reported Sunday tens of civilian casualties from a presumed government or Russian airstrike on a village outside Aleppo.

The Local Coordination Committees activist network in Syria reported 15 civilians killed in a Russian airstrike on the village of Anjara, controlled by the opposition in the western Aleppo countryside, and tens of others wounded. Activists usually identify planes by their silhouettes and home base.

The Observatory said the strike was accompanied by raids on other opposition-held villages in the Aleppo countryside.

Meanwhile, Anadolu also reported Sunday that the Islamic State group had used chemical weapons against Turkish-backed Syrian opposition fighters in northern Syria, wounding 22. The report cited a statement by the chief of general staff's office. The report could not be immediately verified independently.

Later Sunday, Turkey's emergency relief directorate, which investigated the claim, said it found no trace of chemical warfare. The military was not available for further comment.

Elsewhere in Syria, Israeli aircraft struck a machine gun-mounted vehicle inside the country Sunday, killing four Islamic State-affiliated militants on board after they opened fire on a military patrol on the Israeli side of the Golan Heights, according to the Israeli military.</s>BEIRUT — Syrian government forces and their allies captured a major eastern Aleppo neighborhood and several smaller areas Monday, putting much of the northern part of Aleppo's besieged rebel-held areas under government control, state media reported.

Russia's Defense Ministry said the areas captured by Syrian government troops include 10 neighborhoods and over 3,000 buildings. The ministry said in a statement that more than 100 rebels have laid down their arms and exited the Syrian city's eastern suburbs.

Aleppo, Syria's largest city and former commercial center, has been contested since the summer of 2012 and a rebel defeat in the city would be a turning point in the five-year conflict. If Syrian forces capture all of east Aleppo, President Bashar Assad's government will be in control of the country's four largest cities as well as the coastal region.

The government's push, backed by thousands of Shiite militia fighters from Lebanon, Iraq, and Iran, and under the occasional cover of the Russian air force, has laid waste to Aleppo's eastern neighborhoods.

Rami Abdurrahman, who heads the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said Syrian government forces have captured some 10 neighborhoods over the past few days, putting nearly 30 percent of Aleppo's formerly rebel-held neighborhoods under state control.

Government forces captured the Hanano district on Saturday, the first time they had pushed this far into eastern Aleppo since 2012.

Thousands of east Aleppo residents have fled to safety in government and Kurdish-controlled areas of the city since Saturday.

State TV said 3,000 people, half of them children, have fled over the past few hours. It showed men, women and children in green buses being taken to government-controlled areas.

"It is stinging cold, food is scarce and people are shaken in the streets," Mohammad Zein Khandaqani, a member of the Medical Council in Aleppo, told The Associated Press in a voice text message from east Aleppo.

He added that some residents are taking refuge in mosques while others moved to homes of displaced people in safer areas.

He said although thousands of people have fled to government or Kurdish-controlled areas in Aleppo, many stayed because they are wanted by the state.

The Russian Defense Ministry also said Syrian government troops had pushed the rebels from Qadisia which it described as the "key neighborhood of eastern Aleppo."

Associated Press writers Sarah El Deeb in Beirut, Albert Aji in Damascus, Syria and Nataliya Vasilyeva in Moscow contributed to this report.
Syrian government forces and Kurdish People's Protection Units capture more than a third of rebel-controlled eastern Aleppo.