BEIRUT — Government airstrikes and shelling outside Syria’s capital killed at least 23 civilians, activists reported Sunday, as the fighting showed no signs of letting up ahead of the resumption of UN peace talks in Geneva.

Government jets and artillery launched a wave of attacks on residential areas in the Eastern Ghouta suburbs of Damascus, said the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group. It said 25 people had been killed.

The locally run Ghouta Media Center put the number of civilians killed at 23.

Rescuers arriving in Mesraba picked up the dead and wounded from the streets, as seen in a video posted by the Ghouta Media Center and the Syrian Civil Defense search-and-rescue group, also known as the White Helmets.

Rebels in Eastern Ghouta have held out against government forces throughout nearly seven years of civil war. Conditions are dire in the region, which suffers from shortages of food and medicine due to a government blockade. The United Nations says some 350,000 people need immediate humanitarian aid there.

The UN is set to resume peace talks in Geneva on Nov. 28.

Associated Press