The airstrikes have been unrelenting in a Damascus suburb, where frames of bombed buildings loom over ghostly streets.

Hundreds of lives have been lost in less than two weeks of a government siege of the suburb, eastern Ghouta. Dozens of children are among the dead. Many have been crushed by the collapsing walls of homes leveled by missiles.

The siege has been deemed “one of the most pitiless onslaughts in this long-running and brutal civil war” by the top United Nations human rights official, Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein.

Families have headed into basements and dank tunnels, with small cookstoves, flour and warm clothes. Children, born into war, bring what they love: Their toys.