By Burak Karacaoglu, Esref Musa

IDLIB, Syria (AA): The death toll from attacks by Syrian Government forces and Russian warplanes in de-escalation zone in northern Syria on Monday rose to 15, according to sources with the controversial White Helmets civil defense agency.

According to the sources, five civilians were killed in town of Kafr Zita and two others in Latmeen in the morning at the central Hama province.

During the attacks in the evening eight more civilians including a civil defense official were killed.

The defense agency fears the death toll may rise, sources said.

Since the beginning of last week, at least 123 people were killed in ground and air attacks on the de-escalation zone.

Syrian Arab News Agency reported that the Syrian Government forces were retaliating to what they called “terrorist groups” who fired rocket shells on Friday evening at the towns of Salhab and Mhardeh and Asileh village in Hama’s northwestern countryside.

SANA’s reporter in Hama said that “terrorists” located in the de-escalation zone and its outskirts in Idleb and Hama’s northern

Turkey and Russia agreed last September to turn Idlib into a de-escalation zone where acts of aggression are expressly prohibited.

The Syrian Government and its allies, however, have consistently broken the terms of the cease-fire, launching frequent attacks inside the de-escalation zone.

The de-escalation zone is currently inhabited by about 4 million civilians, including hundreds of thousands of people displaced by the Syrian forces from their cities and towns throughout the war-weary country over recent years.

Meanwhile, an unspecified number of civilians have lost their lives in airstrikes conducted by the US-led military coalition on a village in Syria’s eastern province of Dayr al-Zawr.

SANA, citing local sources, reported Monday that the US-led warplanes carried out airstrikes on al-Rez village in al-Basira area in the eastern parts of the volatile province.

The aerial attacks killed a number of civilians and wounded others, most of them women and children, it added.

Syria has been locked in a vicious civil war since early 2011, when the Bashar al-Assad regime cracked down on pro-democracy protests with unexpected ferocity.

Since then, hundreds of thousands of people have been killed and more than 10 million others displaced, according to UN officials.

*Writing by Dilara Hamit

Additional report by The Muslim News

[Photo: Civilians try to extinguish the fire after Syrian warplanes carried out airstrikes on the town of Arihah in Idlib province, Syria on July 28, 2019. Photographer: Muhammed Said/AA]