Since President Assad was sworn in last week, the military has intensified its bombing of the rebel-controlled northwestern region.

Rescuers and a war monitor said that Syrian government shells hit a village in the country’s last rebel enclave on Thursday, killing seven members of the same family, including four children.

The shelling is part of a continuing military escalation in northwestern Syria, which has been under a ceasefire sponsored by Russia and Turkey since last year.

According to data confirmed by UNICEF, so far, it is not clear what caused the escalation. Before the attack, at least 17 children had been killed this month.

Rescuers from the opposition, known as the White Helmets, said the shell fell in the village of Ibrin in southern Idlib province.

A mother and her four children were the dead who were rescued from under the rubble of a destroyed house. According to the organization, another seven people were injured.

Rami Abdurrahman, head of the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said the children’s grandfather and uncle were among the victims. He said his father was injured in the attack.

According to the Observatory’s records, since Saturday, the government’s attack on the rebel enclave has killed 21 people, including 11 children and 6 women.

When President Bashar al-Assad, the army intensified its bombing of the northwest enclave Sworn in A new word for an oath to “liberate those parts of the motherland that are still needed” as his first task.

On the same day Assad took the oath that 14 civilians were killed in the attack on the villages of Idlib in Sarja and Ehsin, including seven children.

The observatory said that the shelling of Idlib and the town of Fuaa further north caused the death of nine civilians, three of whom were children.

The attack on Thursday occurred on the last day of the Islamic Eid holiday.

The Syrian government last year agreed to a ceasefire negotiated between Russia and Turkey and promised to restore control of its territories lost in the 10-year conflict.

The March 2020 ceasefire agreement was negotiated between Turkey, which supports the Syrian opposition and deploys troops in the region, and Russia, the main supporter of the Syrian government, which is home to nearly 4 million most of the displaced.

At that time, it stopped a Russian-backed government air and ground operation aimed at retaking the area.

Elsewhere in the country, Kurdish-led forces have taken control of large areas in the east after expelling the Islamic State (ISIS) organization from the area.