Hundreds of people protested Friday by the Bab al-Hawa border gate connecting northwestern Syria and Turkey after a spate of aerial bombings.
The strikes in the rebel-controlled pocket, carried out by the Syrian government and its Russian allies, are said to have left many civilians dead.
People called for an end to the bombing ddemanded that Turkey open the border to allow displaced people to flee and that the bombing stop.
After a while, militants of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) - the Al Qaeda-linked group formerly known as Nusra Front that controls most of Idlib - dispersed the protesters using tear gas and firing warning shots in the air.
Syrian government troops captured four villages in the country's northwest on Friday as part of a new ground offensive to push into the rebel-held province.
The move has already forced thousands of civilians to abandon their homes, opposition activists and the Syrian Central Military Media said.
Overnight, government forces and its Russian ally launched hundreds of air and ground strikes on the south and east countryside of Idlib, according to the Syrian Observatory of Human Rights, apparently paving the way for the ground push.
Residents and activists reported incessant bombing over the last few days.
The Observatory said at least 11 civilians were killed in Maaret al-Numan and its suburbs as well as further north since Thursday.
Before this latest bout of violence, the U.N. reported that some 60,000 Idlib residents had been displaced in recent weeks by the government offensive.
The government has been slowly chipping away at the rebel-held pocket despite a fragile Russian-brokered ceasefire that went into effect in September 2019.
Since the cease-fire, the regime has been pushing to clear access to a strategic highway that links between capital Damascus and northwestern city of Aleppo.
Idlib is home to 3 million civilians and the UN has warned of the growing risk of a humanitarian catastrophe alongside the Turkish border.
Zaman Al Wasl, AP
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