Strikes on Syria's Ghouta kill 500 civilians in seven days: monitor

Smoke billows following a regime air strike on the rebel-held town of Haza, in the besieged Eastern Ghouta region on the outskirts of the capital Damascus, on February 23, 2018. (AFP)

BEIRUT: Air strikes and artillery fire on the Syrian rebel enclave of Eastern Ghouta have killed 500 civilians in seven days, 121 of them children, a monitor said on Saturday.
Deadly new strikes hit the enclave as the UN Security Council prepared to vote on a ceasefire resolution, while more bodies were recovered from the rubble from previous raids, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
Air strikes killed 21 civilians in the Syrian rebel enclave of Eastern Ghouta on Saturday as major powers bickered over the terms of a ceasefire, the monitor said.
Twelve were killed in the enclave's largest town Douma, which has been repeatedly hit in the devastating bombardment the government launched last Sunday, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.