Four medical workers were killed Tuesday night in an airstrike on a facility southwest of Aleppo, according to a relief organization, in a wave of renewed violence that has left Syria’s ceasefire deal in tatters.
The attack occurred at a medical facility in Khan Touman, a village in Aleppo province, according to Zedoun Alzoubi, CEO of the Paris-based International Union of Medical Care and Relief Organizations, which runs the facility.
Khan Touman is near Urum al-Kubra, the site of Monday night’s deadly strike on an aid convoy that prompted the United Nations to halt its aid operations in Syria.
The bomb Tuesday night struck medical staff tending to wounded patients in triage, killing two ambulance drivers and two nurses, and leaving a nurse critically burned, Alzoubi said.
Nine patients at the facility were also killed, Alzoubi said, adding he did not know if they were civilians or fighters. The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that the nine patients killed were rebel fighters.
More victims are feared dead underneath the rubble, according to the medical relief organization.
Alzoubi said he believed the airstrike intentionally targeted the medical facility — a charge that has repeatedly been leveled at the Syrian military and their Russian allies throughout the conflict.
ISIS shoots down Syrian warplane
The strike came as the United States and Russia continue a war of words over a deadly attack Monday night on a Syrian Arab Red Crescent aid convoy west of Aleppo.
That attack is part of an uptick of violence gripping the country following the ceasefire’s week of relative calm, and it has given rise to fears that the hard-won ceasefire deal is dead.
In the latest upheaval, a Syrian warplane was shot down Wednesday during a combat mission against ISIS in the eastern Qalamoun area near the capital, Damascus, but the pilot rescued, Syrian state media reported, quoting a military source.
The terror group claimed responsibility for downing the jet in a statement from the ISIS-affiliated Amaq news agency.
On Sunday, ISIS shot down another Syrian jet in the eastern province of Deir Ezzor.
US: Russia to blame for aid convoy assault
On Wednesday, the UN Security Council met to discuss the failing ceasefire, with Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon saying: “We must remain determined that the ceasefire will be revived. I urge everyone to use their influence now — today — to ensure that it does.”
The architects of the troubled ceasefire, US Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, are scheduled to speak on the sidelines.
Both sides have accused the other throughout the ceasefire period of failing to rein in military forces under their influence — the Syrian military, in Moscow’s case, and rebel forces, in Washington’s.
The aid convoy strike, which Ban called “sickening, savage and apparently deliberate,” killed about 20 people, including the director of the Red Crescent’s Urum al-Kubra branch.
The United States has reached the preliminary conclusion that Russian warplanes bombed the aid convoy, US officials have told CNN, and say that Russia is responsible, whether it was Russian planes — or the Syrian regime’s — that struck.
Russia denies it was responsible and says that terrorists carried out the attack, saying that analysis of drone footage of the strike showed that militants were following the convoy.
Syria also strongly denies its forces were behind the attack.
Rebels, locked in a vicious civil war with the Syrian government, reportedly hold the area where the convoy was struck.
Eighteen of the convoy’s 31 trucks were hit, the United Nations said. The convoy was due to deliver food and medical aid for some 78,000 people in eastern Aleppo, where an estimated 250,000 civilians are facing severe shortages as a result of a government siege.
What about the ceasefire?
Monday night’s attack came just hours after Syrian authorities declared an end to the fragile ceasefire, which began September 12.
Soon afterward, Syrian warplanes resumed airstrikes in Aleppo, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
While the violence appears to have left the hard-fought ceasefire in jeopardy — US officials said they believe the agreement is still in place.
Ben Rhodes, deputy national security adviser, said the US preference is to continue with the ceasefire effort, paving the way for more cooperation between the Russian and US militaries in Syria, but that Moscow’s actions could prevent further coordination.
“We have not seen good faith. This was an outrageous action,” Rhodes told CNN’s Michelle Kosinski. “It raises serious questions about whether or not this agreement moves forward.”
He added, “In conflicts like this I think we have an obligation to continue to pursue whether there are diplomatic openings. If we can’t, we walk away.”
Before Monday’s strike on the aid convoy, Kerry said any decisions about the ceasefire would be made between Washington and Moscow.
“The Syrians didn’t make the deal,” he said, “the Russians made the agreement.”
The convoy strike followed two days after warplanes from the US-led coalition killed dozens of Syrian government troops in error in a strike intended to target ISIS. The troops had been fighting ISIS, Syria and Russia said.
The United States expressed regret for the unintentional loss of life.