Rockets fired on a market in a government-controlled area of Damascus killed 35 people and wounded more than 20 others, Syrian state-run media has said.

The government blamed rebels in the eastern suburbs of Damascus for the attack on the Kashkol neighbourhood.

The capital, seat of President Bashar al-Assad's power, has come under increasing attack as government forces continue to pound rebel-held Eastern Ghouta, with military backing from Russia.

Boris Johnson suggests the UK could strike Syria in response to Assad's attack on eastern Ghouta

With government forces tied up in the offensive on Eastern Ghouta, Isis militants seized a neighbourhood on its southern edge, forcing the government to rush in reinforcements.

Isis militants captured the neighbourhood of Qadam late on Monday, a week after rebels had surrendered it to the government.

At least 36 soldiers and pro-government militiamen were killed in the clashes, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. It said dozens more were captured or wounded.

Last year, Isis lost the area of territory it had controlled in eastern Syria since 2014 - and where it had proclaimed its self-styled caliphate - but it retains pockets of control in areas across Syria, including two neighbourhoods on the southern edge of Damascus.

Eastern Ghouta bombings: Syrian war in pictures Show all 14 1 /14 Eastern Ghouta bombings: Syrian war in pictures Eastern Ghouta bombings: Syrian war in pictures A Syrian woman and children run for cover amid the rubble of buildings. AFP/Getty Eastern Ghouta bombings: Syrian war in pictures Smoke rises from buildings following the attack on the village of Mesraba in the rebel-held besieged Eastern Ghouta region on the outskirts of the capital Damascu. AFP/Getty Eastern Ghouta bombings: Syrian war in pictures Injured children receive medical treatment. EPA Eastern Ghouta bombings: Syrian war in pictures A Syrian man carries a child injured. AFP/Getty Eastern Ghouta bombings: Syrian war in pictures An injured child receives treatment following bombings on several areas of eastern Ghouta. EPA Eastern Ghouta bombings: Syrian war in pictures A child reacts inside a hospital after relatives were injured in the bombing. EPA Eastern Ghouta bombings: Syrian war in pictures Syrian children cry at a make-shift hospital in Douma following air strikes on the Syrian village of Mesraba. AFP/Getty Eastern Ghouta bombings: Syrian war in pictures Syrian Civil Defense group extinguishing a store during airstrikes and shelling by Syrian government forces. AP Eastern Ghouta bombings: Syrian war in pictures A wounded 12-year-old Syrian boy, cries as he receives treatment at a make-shift hospital. AFP/Getty Eastern Ghouta bombings: Syrian war in pictures Syrians carry a wounded man. AFP/Getty Eastern Ghouta bombings: Syrian war in pictures An injured man covered with blood at a medical point. Reuters Eastern Ghouta bombings: Syrian war in pictures People sit a medical point in the besieged town of Douma, Eastern Ghouta. Reuters Eastern Ghouta bombings: Syrian war in pictures Syrian Civil Defense running to help survivors. AP Eastern Ghouta bombings: Syrian war in pictures Injured children receive medical treatment. EPA

The government's assault on Eastern Ghouta has displaced 45,000 people, the United Nations said on Tuesday, while tens of thousands more are living in desperate conditions in northern Syria, where a Turkish military campaign is underway.

In Eastern Ghouta, rescue workers were still retrieving bodies from the basement of a school that was bombed on Monday by government or Russian jets, a spokesman for the Syrian Civil Defence group, better known as the White Helmets, said.