A family of nine has been killed in Syrian government bombardment of the rebel enclave of eastern Ghouta, where air strikes and fighting have persisted despite a UN Security Council resolution demanding a ceasefire.
Health authorities in opposition-run eastern Ghouta said several people had suffered symptoms consistent with chlorine gas exposure, killing one child, after an explosion.
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, backed by Russia and Iran, has steadily clawed back control of areas where his opponents rose up against his rule in 2011. Eastern Ghouta is the last major insurgent stronghold near Damascus, the seat of his power.
The bombardment of eastern Ghouta over the past week has been one of the heaviest of Syria's seven-year war, killing at least 522 people in seven days, according to a toll compiled by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based war monitor.
It said two bodies had been pulled from the rubble of a home destroyed by an air strike in the Ghouta town of Douma, with seven others from the same family dead underneath.
The UN Security Council, including Russia, approved the resolution demanding a 30-day truce on Saturday. The intensity of the bombardment has diminished since then but has still killed two dozen people, the Observatory said.
Rebel shelling has caused 36 deaths and a number of injuries in Damascus and nearby rural areas in the last four days, Zaher Hajjo, a government health official, told Reuters.
In eastern Ghouta, people were making use of the relative lull in the bombardment to find provisions, said Moayad Hafi, a rescue worker based there.
"There is less bombardment relative to recent days. Civilians rushed from their shelters to get food and return quickly since the warplanes are still in the sky and can hit at any moment," he told Reuters.
Iran's military chief of staff said on Sunday that pro-Damascus forces would press ahead with the offensive in the Damascus suburbs, saying the ceasefire did not cover parts of the Damascus suburbs "held by the terrorists".
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