BEIRUT — Airstrikes on a rebel-held city in Syria early Tuesday killed at least 15 people, wounded dozens more and demolished several buildings, in one of the deadliest attacks since a cease-fire went into effect last year, Syrian activists and medics said. A series of airstrikes on an opposition-held district in the Syrian city of Homs, presumably carried out by or Syria, killed at least nine civilians today, local activists said.Pro-government forces shelled the city's al-Waer neighborhood with tank and artillery fire in conjunction with the airstrikes, the Local Coordination Committees, an activist network, reported.Government forces have kept the opposition-held neighborhood under siege since 2013, according to the Washington-based Siege Watch. The dead included 10 children and 11 women, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said, adding that the toll could rise further because of the number of wounded with serious injuries. Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman initially said 10 civilians were killed, but after further verification, he said the victims included “16 civilians, most of them women and children.”

“The toll could rise because some people are trapped under the rubble and unaccounted for,” he said. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Tuesday that at least 26 people were killed and casualties were expected to rise as rescue workers searched for bodies under the rubble. The government and the opposition have repeatedly traded accusations of violating the cease-fire, which was brokered by Russia and Turkey and went into effect in December, shortly after the government recaptured the northern city of Aleppo.
According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, airstrikes on the rebel-held city of Idlib kill at least 26 people, with the death toll expected to rise.