As Syrian troops gain ground, Aleppo rebels propose truce

"I can inform you that the Syrian army suspended active military operations in eastern Aleppo today".

More than three-quarters of the rebel sector has now fallen, including the symbolically important ancient Aleppo quarters.

In comments published Wednesday, President Bashar Assad said victory in Aleppo would be a "huge step" toward the end of Syria's war. He said now there was no talk of rebels leaving the city.

However, "the parameters are not yet agreed upon", one official said.

"We're working. and we have to wait for certain feedback and input, but we are working on something and we'll see where we get".

The Syrian army has stopped all military actions in Aleppo and is focusing efforts on evacuating residents, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Thursday.

"Liberating Aleppo from the terrorists deals a blow to the whole foundation of this project", he said.

Aleppo is being subjected to daily bombings and artillery attacks by the Syrian regime supported by Russian Federation and Iran, they said, adding that hospitals and schools "appear to be the targets of attack in an attempt to wear people down".

A map provided by the Syria army showed a quickly shrinking opposition enclave- a pointed leaf-shaped territory in the center, abutting already government-controlled Aleppo districts.

"Nothing has changed", a Turkish-based official with the Jabha Shamiya rebel group told Reuters, describing the situation as of 9:30 a.m. on Friday. Israel is widely believed to have carried out a number of airstrikes in Syria in the past few years that have targeted advanced weapons systems, including Russian-made anti-aircraft missiles and Iranian-made missiles. On Wednesday, the militants called for a five-day cease-fire to allow civilians, including an estimated 500 people in need of medical evacuation, to leave for the countryside north of the city.

In his wide-ranging interview, Assad pledged to fight rebels even beyond Aleppo, because "the war in Syria will not end until after the complete elimination of terrorism".

"There has to be a pause", said Jan Egeland, head of the UN-backed humanitarian task force for Syria, pointing out that civilians had little chance of escaping the besieged part of eastern Aleppo.

Dec 9, 2016- Hundreds of men and boys appear to have gone missing after leaving rebel-held areas of Aleppo, the UN's human rights office says.

"We have suffered a lot", said a man in his early 60s who was traveling with eight relatives and asked not to be named.

Rebel fighters, who took control of east Aleppo in 2012, have suffered a string of defeats in recent days, losing about 80 percent of their former territory in the city, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

According to the proposal, the truce is needed to facilitate the evacuation of the wounded militants to the northern part of the Aleppo province controlled by Turkey, dpa news agency reports.

Russian Federation has repeatedly blocked action in the UN Security Council over Syria and the leaders said Moscow's actions had left the organisation "unable to do its work and put an end to the atrocities". A rebel spokesman said al-Qaida-linked group Fatah al-Sham Front, which has a limited presence among the fighters, will abide by the proposal.

Government forces and allied militiamen say they control almost 90 percent of what was once rebel-held territory - a figure the opposition disputes.

But if government forces prevail in Aleppo, any movement to unseat Assad would have to reckon with the reality that he holds the country's four largest cities and its key coastal region.

Many people have streamed from areas rebels have left and are crammed into abandoned homes while air raids and shellfire fall around them, hoping to escape before Aleppo is retaken.

Mr Colville also said there had been reports that rebel groups were preventing people from fleeing to safety, and were "using civilians as pawns".

"Helicopters, warplanes and rocket bombardment, like every other day".