BEIRUT—The warring sides in Syria confirmed on Thursday that the evacuation of rebel fighters and thousands of civilians from the last sliver of the besieged eastern city of Aleppo is imminent, with a Syrian army official saying all is ready for them to leave “at any moment.”
Lebanon’s militant Hezbollah group said overnight negotiations had reinforced a cease-fire deal to allow the rebels and civilians to leave the besieged last rebel holdout in Aleppo.
The evacuations were back on track after a cease-fire deal, mediated by Ankara and Moscow, unraveled amid fighting on Wednesday. Shiite Hezbollah militiamen are fighting in the Syrian civil war on the side of President Bashar Assad’s forces.
The handover of Aleppo’s remaining opposition-run neighborhoods to government control would be a turning point in Syria’s civil war, allowing Assad control of most of the country’s urban centers.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the fighting that scuttled Wednesday’s truce stopped in the city around 4 a.m. Thursday.
