Al Jadida, Syria – Seven civilians, including four children from one family, were killed in a Russian air strike in northern Syria’s opposition-held Idlib province, according to the Syrian Civil Defense, also known as the White Helmets, as well as family members and medical staff.
Friday’s attack on the village of al-Jadida, near the town of Jisr al-Shugur, also wounded 12 others, including eight children.
The attack was the first of its kind in months and disrupted the relative calm enjoyed recently by the area, which is far from the region’s front lines.
A local observer told Al Jazeera that two Russian Su-34 jets attacked the area with four airstrikes in the early hours of the morning. The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights also reported that Russian aircraft carried out four strikes.
Munir al-Mustafa, deputy director of the White Helmets, said the group’s teams in the area found seven bodies and transferred 12 wounded to a local hospital, adding that the attacks affected a chicken farm and the home of a displaced family on the outskirts of al Jadida.
“It took almost three hours to get the victims out from under the rubble, while the Russian planes were still flying in the sky and the possibility that they could target the rescue teams,” Al-Mustafa told Al Jazeera.
Ahmed al-Khatib, a surgeon at the local hospital in the village of al-Kaniya, confirmed that the hospital received 12 wounded, mostly children, and that seven people died, including the four children who were between one and seven years old.
The four bodies of the children, two girls and two boys, lay on the hospital floor, wrapped in blankets, the girls’ hair still tied with red ribbons.
The families of the victims could not believe what happened.
One of the children’s relatives sat in tears next to their bodies and struggled to understand why the attack happened.
“What did these little children do? Were these sleeping children terrorists? asked the man, who did not give his name, also calling for justice.
Rescuers dig through the rubble after an air strike hit a home in Al-Jadida, Idlib province, on July 22, 2022. [Ali Haj Suleiman/Al Jazeera]
Ahmed Abdul Hai, a 36-year-old man from government-held Hama province, said his home was hit and that some of his family members were killed in the attack.
“We were trying to find a safe place for our children and families, but the third strike hit my home directly and killed my nephew and injured three of my children,” Abdul Hayi told Al Jazeera, who said the youngest child injured was only two and a half. “It was a terrifying experience, it was very difficult to see my children injured. The minutes it took to transfer them to the hospital felt like hours.
“We moved here from Hama because it is relatively safe as the people are Christian, but it seems that Russia and [Syrian President Bashar] al-Assad killed everyone across the street,” Abdul Hai added.
The UN’s deputy regional humanitarian coordinator for the crisis in Syria, Mark Cutts, condemned the attack.
“Parties to a conflict have a responsibility to ensure that civilians are protected,” Cutts said. “Attacks against civilians and civilian infrastructure must stop.
The Syrian government’s attacks in Idlib have been focused on the Jabal al-Zawiya area in the south of the province.
In recent weeks, the intensity of shelling between government and opposition forces across the front lines in Idlib has increased, and a recent attempt by government forces to advance into Maarat al-Naasan, in eastern Idlib.
The escalation in violence comes as Turkey continues to insist it will launch a military operation against the mainly Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces, despite opposition from the Syrian government as well as Russia and Iran.
The 2011 uprising in Syria turned into war after the government responded violently to the protest movement in the country.
Russian intervention on the side of the government in 2015 turned the tide of the conflict, with Idlib now the only province largely controlled by the opposition.
The war has killed more than 300,000 civilians, according to the United Nations.
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