At least 10 children were killed as they were playing outdoors and another 15 people were wounded, including two women, when Syrian regime war planes bombed Deir al-Asafir village near Damascus on Sunday, opposition activists said. Video footage showed residents collecting young bodies torn by shrapnel.
According to an activist in the village, Abu Kassem, this was indiscriminate bombing whereas there was no fighting in the village, with the knowledge that the regime used cluster bombs in the attack. He added that the bodies of children were torn and it was difficult to identify their remains.
According to media, video footage taken by activists showed the bodies of two young girls, one wearing purple, the other red, on the street in the village, with wounds in their neck and head. A sobbing woman picked up one of the girls up and hugged her lifeless body.
Another two dead boys, hit in the head and face, were shown on the backseat of a car. Men picked up the bodies of two other children, while a larger body lay next to the front wheel of a vehicle.
The authenticity of the video has not been confirmed from a neutral source. On the other hand, an Al Arabiya TV correspondent in Syria said that he himself had fainted after watching the children being murdered in front of his eyes, confirming the authenticity of the video. He further stressed that what appears in the video is much less than what is happening on the ground, where one of the children had his body separated from head and limbs.
Meanwhile, fighting erupted along the ceasefire line of the Golan Heights, with two Islamists killed inside the Syrian section of a demilitarized zone.
Israel’s military earlier reported that, gunfire hit near an Israeli army jeep traveling near the northern border. The military added that was the second time stray fire from the Syrian side was encountered on Sunday. No injuries or damages were reported.
Moreover, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that the Free Syrian army on Sunday seized the training camp of a pro-regime Palestinian faction in the Rihan area of Damascus and took control of an arms depot after fierce clashes.
However, PFLP-GC Secretary-General Ahmad Jibreel has declared his support for the Syrian regime and recruited armed faction members, allegedly to defend Palestinian refugee camps against rebel fighters.
It is worth mentioning, Syria is home to nearly 500,000 UN-registered Palestinians and their descendants, who were expelled or fled from their homes during the 1948 war of Israel’s creation. Palestinians say an additional 120,000 Palestinians reside in Syrian cities.
Palestinians have largely stayed out of the war in Syria between Assad’s regime forces and political, armed Syrian opposition trying to topple the government. Leaders have sought to avoid commenting on the situation and embroiling their exiles.
