"Yesterday at noon we and a UNHCR team were able to bring in aid from the Jisr al-Haj crossing," Red Crescent operations chief Khaled Erksoussi said on Wednesday.

The crossing lies between the government-held west of Aleppo and eastern parts of the city that rebels control.

"The operation took place after the implementation of a ceasefire between all the parties that was respected during the mission," Mr Erksoussi said.

It was the first time aid had been brought in via the Jisr al-Haj crossing, with a delivery in June last year entering from the north-east of the city instead.

The goods, including food, blankets and health kits, were taken into the eastern neighbourhoods on carts pulled by workers because the crossing was too small to accommodate vehicles, Mr Erksoussi said.

The items would be stored in warehouses in the eastern part of the city and distributed in stages.

The UN refugee agency called the mission a "rare and risky operation", adding that its staff had observed a "dire humanitarian situation inside eastern Aleppo".

It described "an acute shortage of food, water, medicine and basic supplies".

"UNHCR last accessed the area in June 2013 and no humanitarian aid has reached the population there since then," it said.

It said the aid had been delivered to the crossing in two trucks and then transported by 75 workers pulling carts "back and forth 1� kilometres each way . . . in 270 trips."

Aleppo has been effectively divided into regime control in the west and rebel control in the east since soon after fighting began there in the middle of 2012.

The government has made some advances on the outskirts of the eastern side of the city in a campaign that has included serial aid raids, including with the use of explosive-packed barrel bombs.

Syria's army seized the rebel-held town of Rankus on Wednesday, state media reported, citing a military source, as the regime extends its control over the strategic Qalamun region.

"Units of the Syrian army have now accomplished their operation in the Rankus area and restored security and stability after eliminating a large number of terrorists," state media said.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based monitoring group, had earlier confirmed that "the army entered the area and is engaged in fierce fighting and heavy shelling".

The group said 28 rebels had been killed in the Qalamun area as well as in Eastern Ghouta, elsewhere in Damascus province, in fighting between Tuesday and Wednesday.

Rankus is about 45 kilometres north of Damascus and was home to 20,000 people before the conflict in Syria began in March 2011.

Syrian troops backed by pro-regime militiamen and Lebanon's Hezbollah movement have captured most of the Qalamun region, which lies along the border with Lebanon.

The key highway between Damascus and Homs also runs through the region.

In Vatican City, Pope Francis on Wednesday condemned the "destruction" of Syria at a general audience in St Peter's Square after the murder of a Catholic priest in Homs.

"May the weapons fall silent! No more war, no more destruction," Francis said, expressing his "profound pain" after the killing of Father Franz van der Lugt.

"He was loved and valued by both Christians and Muslims," the Pope told about 45,000 faithful assembled on the Vatican piazza.

"It filled me with profound pain and made me think of all the people who suffer and die in the martyred country," he said.

Francis has repeatedly called for dialogue and reconciliation in Syria, appealing for the international community to stop supplying arms to the government and the opposition and condemning the threat of military intervention.

AFP