BEIRUT -- Artillery shelling by pro-government forces resumed early Wednesday on besieged eastern neighborhoods of the Syrian city of Aleppo, delaying the evacuation of thousands of civilians and fighters who had expected to leave under a deal involving Russia and Turkey.
However, hours after the shelling restarted, the rebels said the deal was back on.
Three rebel spokesmen said the first group of wounded people and civilians were to be escorted out of the city early today. Uninjured rebels would follow, they said, adding that the conditions had not changed and that they had even agreed with the Russians on the exact number of buses and convoys to be deployed in the rescue.
The Syrian military media denied an agreement had been reached and said in a statement that the negotiations were "complicated."
On Wednesday, buses that were to evacuate some of the last holdouts in the heavily bombed neighborhoods left, empty, after waiting for hours, according to Al Manar, the television channel of the militant Shiite group Hezbollah.
The Lebanese channel Al Mayadeen showed buses idling at a prearranged evacuation point, waiting to take 5,000 fighters and their families to Atareb, a town west of Aleppo, with thousands more civilians to follow. But the buses left when it became clear that there would be no evacuation.
Osama Abu Zayd, a legal adviser to Syrian opposition factions, said the evacuation deal was being resisted by Iran's field commander in Syria. Opposition leaders and civilians inside Aleppo said they believed that Iran -- a major ally of the Syrian government -- had balked at the deal, annoyed about not being consulted by Russia and Turkey.
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Witnesses said pro-government militias had prevented a convoy of about 70 wounded people -- mostly fighters and their relatives -- from departing. The militias, observers said, insisted that they would not allow anyone out until rebel groups had ended their siege of Fouaa and Kfarya, two Shiite enclaves in Idlib province.
The Russian Defense Ministry blamed the rebels for the impasse, saying Wednesday that they had "resumed the hostilities" at dawn, trying to break through Syrian government positions to the northwest.
Residents, activists and medical personnel described mayhem in the tiny sliver of Aleppo still under opposition control, where volleys of shells rained down on the area where tens of thousands of civilians were trapped alongside rebels in gutted apartment buildings and other shelters.
Videos, shared online by residents huddling indoors, recorded the sounds of war -- deafening explosions that highlighted fears of a bloodbath. Rescuers were overwhelmed, and a comprehensive casualty toll was impossible.
"They began to strike as if there's no such thing as a cease-fire or civilian evacuation," said Mahmoud Raslan, a media activist.
Mohammed Abu Jaafar, head of forensics in eastern Aleppo, said residents felt "duped."
"People have left their shelters ... to be ready for the evacuation. I can't describe it," Abu Jaafar said. "Since the morning, they started to target the areas where people have gathered. ... These people were walking to the crossings designated for exit."
Rami Abdurrahman, the head of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said the Syrian government and its allies also wanted the release of fighters taken captive by the rebels as well as the hand-over of more than 250 wanted rebel fighters.
"In exchange for this large numbers of evacuees, they want something in return," Abdurrahman said. He estimated there were 5,000 fighters still in the opposition enclave, as well as more than 15,000 civilians. Tens of thousands have fled to government areas.
Losing hope
It was the latest, bitter whiplash for those trapped in the shrinking rebel-held districts of the ruined city.
Under a deal announced Tuesday by Turkey, Russia and Syrian rebels, the last remaining fighters were to evacuate to rebel-held territory farther north and civilians were free to join them or to move to government-held areas. The entire city of Aleppo then would be in the hands of forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar Assad.
"The Syrian government has a clear responsibility to ensure its people are safe, and is palpably failing to take this opportunity to do so," the U.N. high commissioner for human rights, Zeid Raad al-Hussein, said in a statement Wednesday. He asserted that the resumed bombardment was "a violation of international law and most likely constitutes war crimes."
"The way this deal was dangled in front of this battered and beleaguered population -- causing them to hope they might indeed live to see another day -- and then snatched away just half a day later is also outrageously cruel," his statement said.
A radiology nurse in Aleppo, Mohamed al-Ahmad, said he hoped the world would hear "our final scream from the last free neighborhoods in Aleppo."
He said he had lost faith as the deal to evacuate the last pockets of opposition-controlled areas had fallen apart. "The agreement has been broken," he said Wednesday. "Hundreds of shells have fallen on us. People who were supposed to leave were attacked."
The lack of medical care and rescue services is so dire, he added, "that people are bleeding to death in the streets."
Malek, an activist who said he hoped to join his pregnant wife in northern Aleppo province, and who asked to be identified only by his first name for fear of being killed, said that "the scenes are unbearable." He added: "I would say that life is becoming harder than death. People are dying for nothing, without any justification. Humans are no longer human."
"We didn't taste the flavor of life," he added.
Assad on attack
Assad, speaking in a series of interviews with Russian media Wednesday, said the cease-fire was designed to stop his government's advance in the city and "keep the terrorists and save them."
He said Western countries pressured Russia for the truce when rebels appeared to be on the verge of losing Aleppo. "Hostilities end only in the areas where terrorists say they are ready to surrender or leave," Assad said.
Asked whether the Syrian army will move in on rebel-held territory in Idlib after taking Aleppo, he said Damascus would work out further military action with Moscow and Tehran after the government takes full control of Aleppo. "What city will be liberated next depends on where most terrorists receiving logistical assistance from abroad" are located, Assad said.
Assad also reiterated his description of President-elect Donald Trump as a prospective ally, given Trump's call for the United States not to interfere in other countries' affairs, as well as his focus on fighting terrorism. The Syrian government refers to all rebels as terrorists.
"If Trump can overcome all these obstacles and genuinely fight against terrorism, I believe, he will become our natural ally -- and yours, too," Assad said.
Information for this article was contributed by Anne Barnard, Hwaida Saad, Ivan Nechepurenko and Somini Sengupta of The New York Times and by Sarah El Deeb, Dominique Soguel, Philip Issa, Vladimir Isachenkov and Ayse Wieting of The Associated Press.
A Section on 12/15/2016