Dozens of civilians were killed on Monday in heavy bombardment on the rebel-held Eastern Ghouta enclave near the Syrian capital Damascus. A total of 71 people have been killed in bombardment on Ghouta in the past 24 hours, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. A barrage of air strikes, rocket fire, and artillery slammed into several towns across Eastern Ghouta on Monday, killing 44 civilians and wounding dozens more. The Britain-based monitor said 20 were killed in air strikes on Hammuriyeh and nine others in bombardment on Saqba. The rest were killed when other areas were pounded. Four children were among the dead. "The regime is bombing Eastern Ghouta to pave the way for a ground offensive," said Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman. Residents of Hammuriyeh could be seen rushing inside in a panic as soon as they heard the sound of airplanes. Alaa al-Din, a 23-year-old Syrian in Hammuriyeh, said civilians were afraid of a potential regime offensive. "Ghoutas fate is unknown. Weve got nothing but Gods mercy and hiding out in our basements," he told AFP on Monday. Held by rebels since 2012, Eastern Ghouta is the last opposition pocket around Damascus and Syrian regime head Bashar Assad has dispatched reinforcements there in an apparent bid to retake it. Shelling also hit the town of Douma, where an AFP correspondent saw five toddlers brought to a hospital, covered in dust and wailing uncontrollably. Medics offered them biscuits to calm them down, to no avail. Regime troops carried out a relentless five-day bombing campaign earlier this month that killed around 250 civilians in the enclave and wounded hundreds. Around the same time, the monitor said, the regime began dispatching military reinforcements to Eastern Ghouta. After days of relative calm, the regime sent more than 260 rockets sailing onto Eastern Ghouta on Sunday. Those rockets, as well as artillery fire and air strikes, killed 17 civilians, said the Observatory. The United Nations said last week Syria was seeing some of the worst fighting of the war, which is entering its eighth year. The multi-sided conflict has killed hundreds of thousands of people and driven millions from their homes. Malnutrition has increased sharply in eastern Ghouta, particularly among children, with barely any food aid available, the UN office for humanitarian affairs (OCHA) says. Rising violence reportedly pushed some 15,000 civilians to flee their homes last month, taking refuge in makeshift shelters or basements, OCHA said. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Monday Moscow and its allies could “deploy our experience of freeing Aleppo ... in the eastern Ghouta situation”.