Government air raids struck at least five medical facilities in the northern province of Aleppo, where violence has intensified in recent weeks amid a siege by government forces, Syrian opposition activists said Sunday.Their reports came as rockets rained down on several Old Damascus neighborhoods, including one known for its cafes and restaurants, killing at least eight people and wounding 20 others.

The activists said the Aleppo air raids began late Saturday night and continued until after midnight, killing at least five people across the city, including an infant.

The International Committee of the Red Cross tweeted after reports of the air raids on the provincial capital of Aleppo and the nearby town of Atareb: “Harrowing news: More hospitals hit in #Aleppo this morning. Civilians and hospitals are #notatarget.”

Rival sides in Syria’s 5-year-old conflict have targeted hospitals and clinics in the past, mostly in the country’s north.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said four clinics were now out of service in the city of Aleppo, as was the fifth in the town Atareb to the west. It said five people had been killed in Aleppo city.

The Observatory said the clinics closed because they feared being targeted again.

Aleppo-based activist Baraa al-Halaby confirmed that five clinics were hit, adding that an infant was killed in a clinic in the Shaar neighborhood of Aleppo in the early hours of Sunday. He added that a blood bank was struck in Aleppo as well.One of the facilities hit, Al-Bayan Hospital, posted several photographs on its Facebook page showing the damage to the building. A caption read that the hospital was subjected to “more than one airstrike by warplanes causing wide damage and completely putting the hospital out of service until further notice.”

An amateur video posted online shows two nurses, one carrying a baby. They move past seven incubators – four with newborns inside – lining both sides of a room that appears undamaged. The camera then looks out over a balcony lined with sandbags, showing a dusty scene outside and one man running across an otherwise deserted street. The video appeared genuine and corresponded to other AP reporting of the events.

According to Physicians for Human Rights, 750 medical personnel have been killed in Syria so far, 698 of whom were killed in attacks carried out by government forces and their Russian allies. The group says that between 2011 and May this year, there were 373 attacks on 265 medical facilities.

“The deliberate targeting of hospitals is part of a strategy to either drive civilians to leave the country or ensure their suffering is severe if they remain in opposition-held areas,” said Widney Brown, Director of Programs at Physicians for Human Rights.

“If they are wounded from attacks they may not be able to get lifesaving treatment. If they are sick, likewise,” Brown said.

The activist Halaby said that later Sunday an air raid struck a store house that has some 10,000 food baskets that were to be used in case people become in need for food.

Syrian government forces and their allies cut the main road into rebel-held parts of the country, known as the Castello Road, last week – laying siege to opposition-held parts of Aleppo. The country’s largest city and former commercial center, Aleppo has been contested since July 2012.

Residents have been reporting shortages of food in rebel-held parts of the city because of the siege.

In Damascus, the Observatory said the rockets from the attack in Old Damascus were fired from rebel positions on the outskirts of the capital.

“At least eight people were killed and more than 20 others were wounded when rockets hit several neighborhoods in Old Damascus,” Observatory head Rami Abdel-Rahman said.

Syria’s state news agency SANA, quoting a police source, denounced a “terrorist attack” that it said killed five people and wounded 16.

SANA said the rockets hit the mostly Christian neighborhood of Bab Touma. The Observatory said rockets also struck Bab al-Salama and Qaymariyeh in Old Damascus.

A restaurant in Qaymariyeh was hit, it said.

An AFP correspondent who went to Bab Touma said he saw bloodied people running in the streets, calling for help and waiting for ambulances.

A civilian in a pickup truck ferried several people to hospital, the correspondent said, explaining that ambulances could not enter Bab Touma because of its narrow alleyways.

The rocket attack was the first to target Damascus in months, since a cease-fire brokered by the United States and Russia in February.

Syria’s government said it was ready for further peace talks with the opposition and that it was intent on a political solution to the 5-year-old conflict. “Syria ... is ready to continue the Syrian-Syrian dialogue without any preconditions ... and without foreign interference, with the support of the United Nations,” SANA quoted an unnamed official in the Foreign Ministry as saying.

The official also welcomed the Russian-U.S. talks that discussed ways of fighting Daesh (ISIS) and the Nusra Front.