In this photo released on Thursday Feb. 22, 2018 which provided by the Syrian anti-government activist group Ghouta Media Center, which has been authenticated based on its contents and other AP reporting, shows a Syrian man runs between destroyed buildings which attacked during airstrikes and shelling by Syrian government forces, in Ghouta, a suburb of Damascus, Syria. (Ghouta Media Center via AP)
In this photo released on Thursday Feb. 22, 2018 which provided by the Syrian anti-government activist group Ghouta Media Center, which has been authenticated based on its contents and other AP reporting, shows a Syrian man runs between destroyed buildings which attacked during airstrikes and shelling by Syrian government forces, in Ghouta, a suburb of Damascus, Syria. (Ghouta Media Center via AP) Credit: Uncredited

Beirut — A United Nations Security Council vote to halt the Syrian army’s furious blitz on a rebel-held Damascus suburb was delayed on Thursday as Russia described civilian testimonies from the battered enclave as “mass psychosis.”

More than 350 people have been killed in Eastern Ghouta since Sunday, according to local doctors and monitoring groups, marking one of the bloodiest periods of Syria’s six-year war.

The vote at the Security Council would have imposed a 30-day pause in the fighting and allowed humanitarian supplies to be delivered to an area exhausted by five years of siege.

As a key ally of Syrian President Bashar Assad, Russia has used its veto power at the U.N. Security Council nine times to block resolutions critical of the Syrian government, but other members hoped on Thursday that it would ultimately abstain in the face of the heavy civilian casualties.

As the bombing continued in Eastern Ghouta, doctors in the sprawling rebel-held district described a health-care system pushed to breaking point, with medical staff forced to prioritize resources and leave grievously wounded patients to die.

Russia’s U.N. ambassador, Vassily Nebenzia, called the cease-fire resolution introduced by Sweden and Kuwait unrealistic, describing reports from the area as “mass psychosis.” He said he would circulate Russia’s proposed amendments.

But Mark Lowcock, the U.N. official for humanitarian affairs, laid out a scene of death and desperation in a Security Council briefing that at times became a raw plea for intervention.

“Your obligations under humanitarian law are just that, binding obligations,” he said via videoconference from Geneva. “They are not favors to be traded in a game of death and destruction. Humanitarian access is not a nice-to-have. It is a legal requirement.”

The five-day blitz by forces loyal to the Syrian government has sent more than a thousand casualties spilling into a hospital network that has been bombed to near destruction. The Syrian-American Medical Society, a nonprofit that supports hospitals in the area, said that at least 23 of its facilities had been bombed since Sunday.

“Our lives have become impossible. We have seen patients with their brains spilling out and been forced to choose to save other lives because that is all we can do now,” said Hamza Hasan, a doctor supported by the organization.

Kellie Currie, the deputy U.S. ambassador to the U.N., accused Russia of “appearing to be intent on blocking any meaningful effort” to halt the bombing and save lives. “The Assad regime wants to bomb or starve all of their opponents into submission,” she told the council.”

Ahead of Thursday’s emergency session at the Security Council, the Tass news agency reported that Moscow’s delegation would not consider any resolution that included extremist groups in the cease-fire.