ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq - The Syrian military announced that it has ceased all military activities in the Kurdish-majority Sheikh Maqsoud neighborhood of Aleppo as of 3 pm on Saturday, a claim that has been denied by Kurdish-led forces.

Clashes between Damascus-affiliated forces and Kurdish-led security forces (Asayish) have wracked Aleppo’s Kurdish-majority Sheikh Maqsoud and Ashrafiyeh neighborhoods in recent days, with tens of people having been killed so far and hundreds of others displaced.

After the collapse of a brief ceasefire on Friday, the bloodshed continued into Saturday, with both sides accusing one another of targeting residential areas and risking the lives of civilians.

The Syrian military announced "the cessation of all military operations" from 3 pm, implicitly asserting that they have extended sufficient control to secure the area. Earlier on Saturday, the armed forces claimed to have swept the entire neighborhood, which the Asayish dismissed as spurious.

"The army will begin handing over all health and government facilities to state institutions and will gradually withdraw from the streets of the Sheikh Maqsoud neighborhood," Syrian state media reported, citing the military command. 

Despite, the announcement, gunfire was still heard in Sheikh Maqsoud in its immediate aftermath, a local source told The New Region.

The Asayish promptly released a statement denying that the conflict had subsisted, insisting that Damascus-affiliated forces continued attacking "with the support of Turkish state aircraft."

In its statement, the Syrian military accused the Kurdish-led fighters of sheltering at the Yassin Hospital, saying that the combatants there "will be transferred to the city of Tabqa, with their weapons being withdrawn."

The Asayish denied that they maintained any military presence in the civilian medical facility, asserting that "the wounded, women and children are in the hospital."

Elham Ahmad, the Kurdish-led Rojava administration's foreign relations co-chair, said Saturday that Syrian state forces "deliberately" targeted the Khaled Fajr Hospital in Sheikh Maqsoud.

The hospital "shelters hundreds of civilian wounded and internal security forces," Ahmad wrote on X. "We call on United Nations organizations to intervene immediately to evacuate them and prevent the commission of a massacre against the wounded"

Aleppo Governor Azzam al-Ghareeb on Saturday said a press conference that 155,000 people have been displaced from the city's Sheikh Maqsoud and Ashrafiyeh neighborhoods due to the recent clashes