Calling for a resolution, she said it was "unacceptable" that both Damascus and rebels continued to "flagrantly（罪大恶极地）" violate humanitarian law.

 

The council has been deadlocked² over aid deliveries in Syria, where millions have been forced to flee their homes.

 

Meanwhile, Syrian troops resumed their attack on a key rebel town.

 

Warplanes have been carrying out air strikes and artillery³ has been pounding Yabroud since Wednesday. The town is the last rebel stronghold in the Qalamoun mountains, near the Lebanese border.

 

There has been a surge in fighting across Syria in recent weeks, with both sides apparently⁴ trying to gain territory to strengthen their hands in ongoing⁵ peace talks in Geneva, Switzerland.

 

The negotiations⁶ between the government of President Bashar al-Assad and Syrian opposition⁷ groups remained deadlocked, with both sides failing to even agree a common agenda on Wednesday.

 

However, the UN-Arab League envoy⁸ to Syria, Lakhdar Brahimi, was more hopeful, saying he had received assurances from US and Russian officials that they were willing to try to "unblock the situation".

 

 

Briefing the UN Security Council on Thursday, Baroness⁹ Amos said: "It is unacceptable that four months since the members of that Council demanded action, international humanitarian law continues to be consistently and flagrantly violated by all parties to the conflict.

 

"All parties are failing in their responsibility to protect civilians¹⁰. We understand that a war is going on, but even wars have rules."

 

And referring to Thursday's decision to extend for a further three days a UN-brokered ceasefire in the besieged¹¹ city of Homs to allow the evacuation of civilians, the under-Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs said the deal did not offer a long-term solution. 

 

"It's 14 months since I raised the alarm in the Security Council about Homs. We managed to get 1,200 people out of Homs, we managed to get food and medicines in for 2,500 people," she said. 

 

"If it's going to take 14 months to do that when you've got 250,000 people in besieged communities, when you've got over three million people in hard-to-reach communities, I really find it very difficult to say that this is a (right) model."

 

The Security Council remains¹² deadlocked over the issue.

 

The US, Britain and France favour a toughly-worded resolution, but it is opposed by Russia which has put forward an alternative draft on fighting what it calls "terrorism" in Syria and offering its own plan for improving aid, our correspondent adds.

 

The civil conflict in Syria has claimed more than 100,000 lives since March 2011. Some 9.5 million people have been forced to flee their homes.

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