Hundreds flee amid Aleppo blitz

Thousands of civilians have fled rebel-held east Aleppo after government forces, determined to retake all of Syria's second city, seized its largest rebel-controlled district and advanced into two other areas.

The capture on Saturday of Masaken Hanano -- which had been the biggest rebel-held district of Aleppo -- was a major breakthrough in a 13-day regime offensive to retake the entire city.

Yesterday, regime forces also took control of two neighbouring areas, Jabal Badra and Baadeen, the Syrian Observatory of Human Rights said.

The regime gains came as its aircraft pounded rebel positions and amid heavy clashes between the opposition and forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad.

Masaken Hanano was the first district the rebels took in the summer of 2012 in a move that divided the city into a rebel-held east and a regime-controlled west.

Around 250,000 civilians trapped under government siege for months in the east have faced serious food and fuel shortages.

The Syrian Observatory said nearly 1,700 civilians had fled over the past 24 hours to government-held parts of western Aleppo and another 2,500 to the Kurdish-controlled northern district of Sheikh Maksoud.

Rebels are consolidating their positions in Sakhur. Sakhur lies on a stretch of just 1.5 kilometres (less than a mile) between west Aleppo and Masaken Hanano, now both controlled by the regime.

If the regime did manage to take control of Sakhur, east Aleppo would be split in two from north to south, dealing a further blow to the armed opposition.

The latest regime push comes after days of intense bombardment on the east, which has been pounded with air strikes, shells and barrel bombs.

On Saturday, dozens of families fled Sakhur and Haidariya as regime raids and artillery fire killed at least 18 civilians in several districts, the Britain-based Observatory said. That took to 219 the overall number of civilians killed, including 27 children, since the government launched its latest assault on east Aleppo on November 15.

Rebel forces also intensified rocket attacks on western districts overnight, killing at least four civilians and wounding dozens, the Observatory said. Such attacks have killed a total of 27 civilians since the offensive began, among them 11 children.

On Sunday, the Turkish army said that 22 pro-Ankara Syrian rebels were hit by a chemical gas attack from Islamic State group jihadists in northern Syria.

Meanwhile, Israeli forces killed four gunmen linked to the Islamic State group after they fired on soldiers yesterday, the military said, in the first such attack on the occupied Golan Heights.

The Israeli soldiers were targeted with machinegun fire and mortars and they shot back, before the air force bombed the vehicle carrying the gunmen identified as members of "Shuhada al-Yarmouk, an IS affiliate", said spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Peter Lerner.

Syria's war has killed more than 300,000 people and displaced more than half the population.