Assad regime and allied forces pounded the opposition-held enclave of eastern Ghouta for a sixth straight day Friday, killing at least nine people, a monitoring organization said.

"The air strikes and the artillery fire are continuing on several towns in eastern Ghouta," Rami Abdel Rahman, the head of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, told AFP.

He said that five of the nine people killed on Friday died in air strikes on Douma, the main town in the enclave east of Damascus, and that two of them were children.

The latest deaths brought to 426 the number of people killed since the Assad regime and its Russian ally intensified their bombardment of the besieged area on February 18.

The number of casualties has overwhelmed rescuers and doctors at hospitals, many of which have also been bombed. World leaders a day earlier called for an urgent cease-fire in Syria to allow relief agencies to deliver aid and evacuate the critically sick and wounded from besieged areas to receive medical care.

But Russia's U.N. ambassador Vassily Nebenzia, who called Thursday's meeting, put forward last-minute amendments, saying the proposed resolution was "simply unrealistic."

The diplomats then announced that a vote would take place on Friday but did not make clear whether they had rallied Moscow to a new draft.

The latest text softens language in a key provision to say that the council "demands" a ceasefire instead of "decides".

It also specifies that the ceasefire will not apply to "individuals, groups, undertakings and entities associated" with Al-Qaeda and the Daesh terror group. A previous version simply mentioned the two groups.

World leaders have expressed outrage at the plight of civilians in eastern Ghouta, which U.N. chief Antonio Guterres called "hell on earth," but have so far been powerless to halt the bloodshed.

"The U.N. says it is concerned and calls for a ceasefire, France condemns, but they have given us nothing," said Abu Mustafa, one of the few civilians on the streets of Douma Friday morning.

"Every day we have strikes, destruction. This would draw tears from a rock, there is nobody who hasn't lost a member of their family," said the 50-year-old, who was escorting a wounded person to hospital.

The area is completely surrounded by regime-controlled territory and residents are unwilling or unable to flee the deadly siege.