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Syria strikes rebel turf, kills 22 people

BEIRUT — Government airstrikes on opposition-held territory in northwest Syria killed at least 22 people, a monitoring group said Friday, as the U.N.’s children’s agency warned a new battle in the war-torn country could affect the lives of 1 million children.

Government forces unleashed a wave of airstrikes across Idlib, Aleppo and Hama provinces after days of building up ground forces at the edge of opposition territory, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

The group said 14 people were killed in the Aleppo province and another eight in the province of Idlib.

Fears have been building for days of a government offensive against the last major bastion for the opposition, centered in the Idlib province and along the edges of the Aleppo and Hama provinces.

U.N. agencies are warning a campaign to capture Idlib would aggravate an already dire humanitarian situation.

Food, water and medicine are already in short supply in the largely rural Idlib province, which is now home to over 1 million Syrians displaced from their homes by government offensives in other parts of the country, said UNICEF, the U.N. children’s agency.

Some 350,000 children, many already living in refugee camps, are at risk of displacement in the event of war, said the agency.