"Local factions took control over 80% of Daraa province, where the factions advanced in dozens of towns, villages and cities including Base Al-Harir Town, Nawa City, Inkhil City and Mahja Town after the regime forces withdrew from the checkpoints and military headquarters and the regime forces were sieged in Daraa Al-Balad and Ezrae’ and Al-Sanmin Cities," reported Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

"Regime forces targeted Da’ael City in middle Daraa countryside with artillery shells. However, no casualties were reported," the observatory said.

Deraa is a strategically crucial region in the country.

It is located close to the main crossings on the Jordanian border.

It is the region where the pro-democracy protests erupted in 2011 and triggered the civil war.

More than 280,000 people have been uprooted in northwest Syria in a matter of days following the sudden and massive offensive into Government-controlled areas led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which is sanctioned by the Security Council as a terrorist group.

Aid has continued to flow from Türkiye across three border crossings into the embattled northwest and the UN World Food Programme (WFP) said that it had opened community kitchens in Aleppo and Hama – cities now reportedly occupied by HTS fighters.

In neighbouring Lebanon, meanwhile, senior UN aid official Edem Wosornu expressed deep concerns for the safety of more than 600,000 people who have begun to return to their devastated homes, after a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah kicked in on 27 November. “I'm sure they are settling back, the problem is what they would find when they go back home,” she told journalists in Geneva, highlighting the potential dangers from unexploded ordnance.