Pope Francis condemns Syria bombing

Aleppo, Syria's largest city and once commercial center, has been contested since 2012 but in recent weeks government forces have laid a siege on eastern rebel-held neighborhoods.

Residents in east of the city say they are experiencing the worst bombing campaign of the war. Hadeel Kasabji, 25, told The Washington Post earlier this year that the lack of electricity was a struggle.

But the quarter of a million civilians trapped in the besieged rebel-held east of the Syrian city believe they will be massacred if they flee or if the city falls, Raed Saleh told AFP.

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Earlier this week, the Syrian military announced a major offensive against rebel-held areas in Aleppo, with government officials and President Bashar al-Assad pledging to capture the whole city from rebel hands.

Another rebel official said government forces were also attacking the insurgent-held Handarat refugee camp a few kilometres to the north of Aleppo. There were no initial reports of casualties in the hospital.

BEIRUT-The continuing Syrian and Russian bombardment of Aleppo has put an unbearable strain on the city's medical and rescue capabilities, leaving bodies under rubble and wounded patients to die in overwhelmed hospitals.

"Secretary Kerry expressed grave concern over the deteriorating situation in Syria, particularly for continued Russian and Syrian regime attacks on hospitals, the water supply network, and other civilian infrastructure in Aleppo", State Department spokesman John Kirby said in a written statement. When the Syrian representative spoke, Power, along with British and French ambassadors, walked out of the session.

"The use of such weapons in a populated area in a place civilians are known to be present could be viewed as an indiscriminate attack and thus a war crime", said the official.

Intentional attacks on hospitals are war crimes, plain and simple, and the silence from the worldwide community is deafening.

Those responsible for bombing Aleppo to death and destruction will be "accountable to God" for their actions, the Pope said today.

Adham Sahloul of the USA -based Syrian American Medical Society, which supports the two hospitals, said the attacks on the medical facilities took place at the same time, suggesting they were deliberately targeted.

A statement from the worldwide charity, also known by its French acronym MSF, says both hospitals hit by airstrikes earlier Wednesday were severely damaged, causing the death of at least two patients and wounding two medics. Of those, 293 were carried out by government forces and 16 were conducted by Russian warplanes, it said.

"The children of Aleppo are trapped in a living nightmare", said UNICEF Deputy Executive Director Justin Forsyth.

Local health authorities said 18 people were killed on Tuesday and 88 wounded in another day of bombardment, though the numbers were an underestimate because they did not include those still under the rubble and others who were buried without being taken to local hospitals.

Imagine the destruction: "People with their limbs blown off; children in awful pain with no relief - Infected, suffering, dying, with nowhere to go and no end in sight", Ki-moon said. He said authorities "know this facility and where it is very well".

Worldwide medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) tweeted to say that both hospitals were out of service.