How long can Aleppo endure destruction?

The Syrian regime is deliberately choosing their targets for airstrikes. Hospitals and civilian neighborhoods have been bombed violently and residents have been left defenseless due to the international embargo.

Repeated bombardments in recent days have exhausted rescue workers who have been continuously digging through debris in search of survivors under bombed buildings. The victims include doctors, nurses, aid workers, residents of neighborhoods, most of them women and children who cannot even escape.

The bombings have been going on for several days and hundreds of civilians have died in the city of Aleppo. They have been left at the mercy of Assad’s regime, its militias and the Russian forces. No one in the international community is doing anything even though Syria, especially Aleppo , is supposed to be under the truce agreement negotiated under the United Nations’ umbrella!

How is it possible that massacres are allowed to be committed every day and parties sponsoring the Geneva negotiations aren’t moved to taking action beyond releasing worthless statements, such as calling for ‘the regime of silence?’

What is happening in Aleppo is terrifying; it is supposed to drive the opposition to reject the false truce, and theatrical negotiations, as massive destruction strikes the nation that have struggled through years of war and the sectarian cleansing.

It is inconceivable for the Gulf states to stay quiet and to compromise on what we see as a dangerous and incomparable escalation never witnessed before. Nothing is left for the Syrian people after being abandoned by the Turks, and the West which defines the misfortune of 24 million Syrians only with the existence of ISIS.

The city of Aleppo, since the involvement of the Russians in the war, have been the object of destruction. Aleppo is one of the largest cities in Syria and most severely targeted by the regime’s airstrikes and by the Russians. While the bombing are also continuing in the Ghouta region of Damascus, the countryside of Latakia and other cities the international community’s only sending more military reinforcements to the areas under the control of ISIS.

The United States has sent one 150 military to Hasaka, and the Turks are threatening to enter the border to hunt down Kurdish rebels and the Syrian people are left alone to face the regime forces that carries out destruction of what remains in the neighborhoods of major cities. Aleppo is already isolated and faces shortage of relief supplies. It has blocked roads in front of people who are trying to escape to the Turkish borders in the north.

The United Nations did not respect its pledge that the negotiations will take place alongside the ceasefire, allowing aid workers to deliver the needed assistance to the victims.

The massacres in the days of the truce have exceeded the massacres in the days of the war. This confirms that the negotiations are not only supporting the Syrian regime, which has been revived by Iranian and Russian allies, but also dashing hopes of peace on the ground.

This article was first published in Asharq al-Awsat on April 30, 2016.

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Abdulrahman al-Rashed is the former General Manager of Al Arabiya News Channel. A veteran and internationally acclaimed journalist, he is a former editor-in-chief of the London-based leading Arab daily Asharq al-Awsat, where he still regularly writes a political column. He has also served as the editor of Asharq al-Awsat’s sister publication, al-Majalla. Throughout his career, Rashed has interviewed several world leaders, with his articles garnering worldwide recognition, and he has successfully led Al Arabiya to the highly regarded, thriving and influential position it is in today. He tweets @aalrashed