BEIRUT: Syrian rebels have fired hundreds of rockets and mortar bombs on two besieged Shiite-majority villages in the province of Idlib, a monitor said Tuesday.

At least seven people were reported killed in the shelling by the Army of Conquest alliance on the regime-held villages of Foa and Kafraya Monday and Tuesday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

It was unclear if the victims were civilians or government troops, the Britain-based monitor said.

Hundreds more were wounded in the bombardment.

Fighting continued around the two villages Tuesday, with opposition forces battling regime forces and fighters from Lebanon’s Hezbollah.

The escalating clashes prompted concern in Damascus, where pro-regime militiamen and their families from the two villages held demonstrations asking to be sent there to defend them.

Most of Idlib province, including its provincial capital, is now held by fighters from the Army of Conquest and other rebel groups after a sweeping offensive earlier this year.

Foa and Kafraya are among the few remaining outposts of regime control in the province, and are now completely besieged.

The Army of Conquest began an attack against the villages on July 15, saying it was retaliation for a regime offensive on Zabadani, the last rebel-held bastion along Syria’s border with Lebanon, earlier this month.

It said the attack would “give you a taste in the north of what our people are tasting in Zabadani.”

Elsewhere, a missile fired by Syrian forces killed at least 18 civilians n a residential neighborhood of the old quarter of Aleppo, the Observatory said.

“The missile struck when people were still inside their homes in the Maghayir district. It killed 18 civilians, including one child, and wounded dozens of others,” said Rami Abdel-Rahman, the director of the Observatory.

“There are many people still stuck in the rubble, and ambulances are going back and forth transporting people,” Abdel Rahman said. 

The Britain-based Observatory said the death toll was likely to rise as more bodies were discovered, and a local anti-regime said the strike killed 26 people.

Photos published by the Observatory showed crumbling walls surrounded by a sea of dusty plastic and cinderblocks.