On Friday, November 29, 2024, four university students were killed and two others injured in a missile attack with contested responsibility allegedly perpetrated by the Syrian regime forces and/or Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham factions affiliated with the Turkish military which struck university housing affiliated with the University of Aleppo in the al-Hamdaniya neighborhood of Aleppo city, Syria.

Responsibility for the shelling was contested by local sources. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reported that the attack was carried out by Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham and allied factions that are affiliated with the Turkish military. According to SOHR’s statement, the incident caused not only casualties but also material damage and widespread panic among students in the dormitory area. Anadolu Agency and other sources, however, citing local sources, attributed the attack to the Assad regime forces.

An update published by Yenisafak and Anadolu on the same day described how students attempted to flee the city following the incident, with many gathering at the central bus station despite a shortage of available buses. The Syrian regime’s state news agency, SANA, accused opposition groups of being behind the attack, while a statement by the Military Operations Department affiliated with the opposition denied shelling residential neighborhoods, calling the regime’s claims “misleading propaganda.”

The report on the incident by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights contained an image of the internal premises of the dormitory where the pavement was covered with traces of blood.

At the time of writing, the names and ages of the students who were killed are unknown.