TYRANT Bashar al-Assad's brutal Syrian regime has been accused of using chlorine gas in a deadly attack on a rebel stronghold.

At least one child was killed and 18 others suffered symptoms consistent with exposure to lethal gas in eastern Ghouta, near Damascus, on Sunday, health authorities said.

Victims, ambulance drivers and others smelt chlorine after "an enormous explosion" in the area of al-Shayfouniya, the opposition Syrian Interim Government's Ministry of Health said.

"At least 18 victims were treated with oxygen nebulising sessions."

The Assad regime has consistently denied using chemical weapons in the war that will soon enter its eighth year.

The Russian defence ministry, which backs the Syrian government, on Sunday accused rebels of preparing to use toxic agents in eastern Ghouta so they could later accuse Damascus of employing chemical weapons.

Today President Vladimir Putin ordered a daily five-hour truce and the creation of a "humanitarian corridor" to allow civilians to leave the rebel-held Syrian enclave of eastern Ghouta.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based organisation that reports on the war, confirmed a child had died from suffocation in eastern Ghouta but said it could not confirm if poison gas had been used, its director told Reuters.

Video circulated on social media networks claiming to show the aftermath of the attack depicted a child's corpse wrapped in a blue shroud, and several bare chested men and young boys appearing to struggle for breath, with some holding nebulisers to their mouths and noses.

Eastern Ghouta, the last major rebel stronghold near Damascus, has been targeted in a fierce government offensive that got underway last week.

The UN Security Council on Saturday demanded a 30-day truce across Syria.

The Observatory said Sunday's bombardment of eastern Ghouta was less intense than last week, but 14 people were still killed.

In recent weeks, the United States has accused Syria of repeatedly using chlorine gas as a weapon. Rebel-held areas of the Ghouta region were hit in a major chemical attack in 2013.

Last year, a joint inquiry by the UN and the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons found the Syrian government was responsible for an April 4, 2017 attack using the banned nerve agent sarin in the opposition-held town of Khan Sheikhoun, killing dozens of people.

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The inquiry had previously found that Syrian government forces were responsible for three chlorine gas attacks in 2014 and 2015 and that Islamic State militants used mustard gas.

The Russian defence ministry said rebel leaders were "preparing a provocation with employment of toxic material, aiming at accusing the governmental forces of using chemical weapons against civilian population".

The statement was released by a Russian ceasefire monitoring centre, which is run by the Russian military, and published on the defence ministry's website.

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