Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Lyse Doucet reports there was joy and relief as aid arrived 
 
 An aid convoy has reached the besieged rebel-held Syrian town of Madaya, bringing vital food and medicines. 
 
 Distribution will continue through the night to 40,000 people who have been trapped for six months by a government blockade and without aid since October. 
 
 The UN says it has received credible reports of people dying of starvation. 
 
 Simultaneously, aid lorries entered two villages besieged by rebel forces in the northern province of Idlib under a deal between the warring parties. 
 
 The situation in Foah and Kefraya is also said to be extremely dire, with an estimated 20,000 people trapped there since March. 
 
 The arrival of the aid was delayed until both sets of lorries were ready to enter. 
 
 Image copyright EPA Image caption Distribution of supplies will continue through the night 
 
 Pawel Krzysiek, who is with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Madaya, said after arriving: "The people... were coming every five minutes asking, 'Listen, did you bring food, did you bring medicine?' 
 
 "Some are smiling and waving at us but many are just simply too weak, with a very bleak expression, too tired." 
 
 War of words - Lyse Doucet, chief international correspondent, BBC News, Beirut 
 
 This humanitarian mission was forged by a cruel conflict. Aid for rebel-held Madaya was contingent on help for government-controlled Foah and Kefraya. 
 
 Images of Madaya's emaciated children sparked alarm in many capitals and created greater impetus but they also provoked a war of words. 
 
 Supporters of the Syrian government and its Lebanese Hezbollah allies accused rebel forces in Madaya of seizing food for themselves. Some even mocked reports of starvation. The opposition charged President Assad's forces with more war crimes. 
 
 Today, Madaya is the face of Syria's suffering. Two years ago, it was Yarmouk. 
 
 These are moments that mobilise the world's sympathy but over the past year, only 10% of the UN's requests to deliver aid to people to in besieged and hard-to-reach areas were granted. That is where 4.5 million Syrians live. 
 
 Siege warfare in Syria 
 
 Syria's civilians living a 'life worse than death' 
 
 One resident, Hiba Abdel Rahman, 17, told Agence France-Presse: "For 15 days we have been eating only soup. 
 
 "I saw a young man killing cats and presenting the meat to members of his family as rabbit. Some people went through garbage bins, others ate grass. We sought food from the fighters but they refused to give it to us." 
 
 In total, some 44 lorries operated by the UN, the ICRC, the Syrian Red Crescent and the World Food Programme reached Madaya from the capital, Damascus. 
 
 Image copyright Reuters Image caption A few people have been given permission to leave Madaya 
 
 Another 21 entered Foah and Kefraya. 
 
 They were carrying basic food items - including rice, vegetable oil, flour, sugar and salt - as well as water, infant formula, blankets, medicines and surgical supplies. 
 
 Marianne Gasser, head of the ICRC's Syria delegation, said the deliveries should not be one-offs. 
 
 She said: "To relieve the suffering of these tens of thousands of people, there has to be regular access to these areas." 
 
 A few residents were given permission to leave and could be seen with belongings awaiting evacuation. 
 
 Madaya, which is about 25km (15 miles) north-west of Damascus and 11km from the border with Lebanon, been besieged since early July by government forces and their allies in Lebanon's Shia Islamist Hezbollah movement. 
 
 Brice de la Vigne from the medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) described the situation in the town as "quite horrific". 
 
 Mr de la Vigne, whose organisation supports a health centre in Madaya, told the BBC that more than 250 people there had "acute malnutrition". 
 
 'Ambiguous information' in local media - BBC Monitoring 
 
 Madaya is a major talking point in the Arabic media, with attitudes ranging from sympathy for its trapped inhabitants to anger at allegedly fake imagery. 
 
 Two pan-Arab satellite television channels that take a firmly pro-rebel line - Saudi-funded Al-Arabiya and Qatar's Al Jazeera - say the Syrian government and its Hezbollah allies are "starving Madaya to death". 
 
 But Syrian state and allied media dismiss the "rumours". Al-Baath newspaper accuses Al Jazeera and Al-Arabiya of a "misleading campaign, using photos of displaced and sick people from all over the world", and says the rebels are using civilians as human shields, 
 
 Some commentators try to take a broader view. Muhammad Kharrub in the Jordanian newspaper, Al-Rai, complains that the rebels themselves are besieging government-held towns, and Mahir Maqlad in Egypt's Al-Ahram notes that both sides "keep their information ambiguous to suit their own interests". 
 
 MSF said on Sunday that a total of 28 people - including six children less than one year old - had died of starvation in Madaya since 1 December. 
 
 However, Hezbollah has denied that there have been any deaths in the town, and accused rebel leaders of preventing people from leaving. 
 
 Blockades have been a feature of Syria's civil war. Up to 4.5 million people live in hard-to-reach areas, including nearly 400,000 people in 15 besieged locations who do not have access to life-saving aid. 
 
 In a separate development on Monday, activists said at least 12 children had been killed in an air strike on a school in the rebel-held town of Ain Jara, in Aleppo province. 
 
 What's happening in Syria? 
 
 More than 250,000 Syrians have lost their lives in almost five years of conflict, which began with anti-government protests before escalating into a brutal civil war. More than 11 million others have been forced from their homes as forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad and rebels opposed to his rule battle each other - as well as jihadist militants from Islamic State. 
 
 Why are civilians under siege? 
 
 All parties to the conflict are using siege warfare, encircling populated areas, preventing civilians from leaving and blocking humanitarian access in an attempt to force opponents to surrender. Shortages of food, water, medicine, electricity and fuel have led to malnutrition and deaths among vulnerable groups. 
 
 Where are the sieges? 
 
 Government forces are besieging various locations in the eastern Ghouta area, outside Damascus, as well as the capital's western suburb of Darayya and the nearby mountain towns of Zabadani and Madaya. Rebel forces have encircled the villages of Foah and Kefraya in the northern province of Idlib, while IS militants are besieging government-held areas in the eastern city of Deir al-Zour. ||||| BEIRUT, Lebanon — In the hills near the Lebanese border, an hour’s drive from downtown Damascus, much of a Syrian town is starving, according to residents and international humanitarian workers. 
 
 The town, Madaya, is controlled by rebels and encircled by pro-government forces with barbed wire, land mines and snipers. People there make soups of grass, spices and olive leaves. They eat donkeys and cats. They arrive, collapsing, at a clinic that offers little but rehydration salts. Neighbors fail to recognize neighbors in the streets because their faces are so sunken. 
 
 Syria, once classified as a middle-income country, now reports periodic malnutrition deaths. At least 28 people, including six babies, have died from hunger-related causes at a clinic in Madaya aided by Doctors Without Borders, medics there say. And the 42,000 people that the United Nations counts as trapped in Madaya are about a tenth of those stranded in besieged or hard-to-reach areas as conditions grow steadily worse. 
 
 Their plight represents a stark failure of international powers that has worsened even as they intensify military and diplomatic activities, all in the name of resolving the conflict. ||||| Play Facebook 
 
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 An aid convoy entered the blockaded town of Madaya on Monday, bearing desperately-needed food and supplies for thousands of starving Syrians. 
 
 Horrific images of emaciated residents and tales of desperation have emerged from Madaya, which has been blockaded for six months by government and pro-government forces. 
 
 A group of people are waiting for the humanitarian #aid #convoy at an entrance to #Madaya. photo AFP pic.twitter.com/1kZLv5skU9 -Vivian Toumeh (@VToumeh) January 11, 2016 
 
 More than two dozen people — including at least six under the age of 1 — have died of starvation since Dec. 1, according to Doctors Without Borders, which called it an "open air prison" with no way in or out. Five died on Sunday. 
 
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 The United Nations warned that nearly 42,000 are at risk of hunger or starvation there, and a doctor in the town told NBC News that residents have resorted to eating cats. 
 
 The Syrian government agreed late last week to allow aid into Madaya and two other towns — Kefraya and Foua — where residents were facing starvation. 
 
 The U.N.-supported convoy set out on Monday with the Red Cross and Syrian Red Crescent and the first trucks were able to enter on Monday afternoon. 
 
 "Offloading of aid expected to last throughout night," a spokesman for the International Committee of the Red Cross posted on Twitter. 
 
 The convoy was expected to bring food for around 40,000 people to last a month in Madaya, though the International Red Cross warned last week the trip could be dangerous. 
 
 "Whatever we bring in, it's not enough," said Iyad Nasr, a spokesman for the U.N.'s OCHA. He told NBC News that the U.N. and others were hoping for unconditional access to the town and other besieged villages. ||||| DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) — Aid convoys were heading to besieged villages in northern Syria and near the Lebanese border on Monday, Syria's official news agency and humanitarian groups said, as residents gathered in the streets for desperately needed food and medicine. 
 
 SANA said the deliveries were headed toward the adjacent Shiite villages of Foua and Kfarya in Idlib province, under siege by rebels seeking to oust President Bashar Assad, as well as toward Madaya, which is blockaded by government troops and the Lebanese Hezbollah militant group. 
 
 The aid operation was agreed on last week. Activists have reported several deaths from starvation over the past weeks in the affected areas, and images of starvation have been circulated across social media. 
 
 The United Nations and Red Cross also reported that the convoys were on their way, while the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the aid was expected to reach the towns in the coming hours. 
 
 The television channel of Hezbollah, which is fighting in Syria alongside Assad's forces, reported that 40 trucks were expected to enter the northern villages, with another 40 headed to Madaya. In Madaya, Al-Manar showed a group of people including women and children waiting for the convoys at the town's main entrance. 
 
 The U.N.'s World Food Programme has said it will ship one month's worth of food for more than 40,000 people to Madaya from Damascus, and enough for 20,000 people to Foua and Kfarya from the city of Homs. 
 
 Also Monday, SANA reported that rocket fire presumably fired by rebels hit a residential neighborhood in the northern city of Aleppo, killing three children and wounding two other people. It said the Syrian army had begun a large offensive in the countryside to the west of the city. 
 
 And in the northern village of Kafranbel, two prominent activists were released after being detained by the extremist Nusra Front. 
 
 The two men, Raed Fares and Hadi Abdullah, were abducted by Nusra, al-Qaida's Syrian affiliate, in an early morning raid Sunday that saw their opposition radio station, Radio Fresh, shut down. 
 
 The Observatory, which relies on a network of activists and other sources inside Syria, reported their release some 12 hours later. The release was also noted on the station's social media pages. 
 
 In Damascus, Iran's interior minister, Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli, reasserted his country's support for Syria at a joint press conference with his Syrian counterpart, Mohammad al-Shaar. 
 
 "The Syrian government has demanded our support against terrorism and we, anyway, stood alongside (President Bashar) Assad, who enjoys his people's support," he said. "We see the conditions in Syria are moving forward in a good way." 
 
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 Associated Press writer Brian Rohan in Beirut contributed to this report.
– Residents of a Syrian town trapped in the nation's civil war are finally getting some desperately needed relief: UN convoys with food and medicine headed to Madaya on Monday, reports the BBC. Shocking stories have emerged about the plight of the estimated 40,000 people there. Doctors Without Borders says 28 people—including six babies—have starved to death since December 1, with another 250 people currently suffering from "acute malnutrition." The situation has become so dire that residents have resorted to eating cats, reports NBC News. The convoys also will deliver supplies to two other villages in northern Syria, reports the AP, and the New York Times has a more in-depth piece explaining what's happening. Madaya is controlled by anti-government forces but encircled by government troops, and the UN struck a deal last week to allow the aid. The bigger problem is that about 400,000 Syrians are believed to be trapped in similar situations elsewhere. "Using hunger as a weapon flies in the face of international law," notes the analysis. "Yet global and regional powers—like Russia, Iran, the United States and Saudi Arabia—are unable or unwilling to pressure their battlefield allies."