The Latest: Former UN envoys hopeful Syria cease-fire holds

Lt.-Gen. Sergei Rudskoi, center, of the Russian Military General Staff listens to Russian and Syrian officers during a video call, as a Syrian army facility is displayed on screen, at a Russian Defense Ministry building in Moscow, Russia, Monday, Sept. 12, 2016. Rudskoi said that the Russian military will continue strikes against the Islamic State group and the al-Qaida’s branch in Syria in coordination with the United States even as a cease-fire brokered by Moscow and Washington goes into effect Monday. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko)

BEIRUT (AP) — The Latest on developments in Syria where a cease-fire brokered by the U.S. and Russia has come into effect (all times local):

1 p.m.

Two former U.N. envoys for Syria say they are hopeful that the Russia-U.S.-brokered cease-fire in the country will stand.

Former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan says the agreement appears to be holding, despite some minor skirmishes. Annan was the U.N. first special envoy for Syria, lasting six months before resigning in August 2012 after failing to secure sufficient backing for a peace deal.

His successor, Algerian diplomat Lakhdar Brahimi, says he is praying the new deal will work. Brahimi told reporters in Berlin on Tuesday that the cease-fire should be seen as a first step, and even if fighting resumes, “the Russians and the Americans will continue to work together.”

Brahimi was the U.N. envoy for Syria from 2012 until 2014, when he was succeeded by incumbent Staffan de Mistura.

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12:45 p.m.

The U.N. humanitarian aid coordinator says it needs to make sure its staff and partners “are not in mortal danger” before starting convoys into parts of Syria under a new cease-fire plan.

OCHA spokesman Jens Laerke says humanitarian aid teams are ready to move into areas such as the troubled northern city of Aleppo. He said the agency needs “peace to be reinstated before we can go in.”

Laerke told reporters in Geneva on Tuesday that he did not know who would make the final assessment when conditions were safe enough for deliveries to resume.

He says no deliveries had been made since the U.S.-Russia brokered cease-fire went into effect on Monday at sunset. The deal is expected to pave the way for U.N.-led aid convoys to resume.

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12:20 p.m.

Turkey’s military says it has shelled two targets inside Syria after a mortar round struck inside Turkey minutes after a cease-fire came into effect in Syria the previous evening.

Maj. Gen. Ertugrulgazi Ozkurkcu said in a statement on Tuesday that the mortar round was determined to have been fired from Syrian government-controlled territory.

It exploded near the border in Turkey’s southern Hatay province shortly after 7:00pm local time Monday.

The statement says Turkish artillery responded with six rounds against two targets, in line with the Turkish military’s rules of engagement.

A U.S-Russia-brokered cease-fire appeared to be holding on Tuesday in Syria, despite sporadic and minor violations.

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10:35 a.m.

The Syrian military says its forces have shot down two Israeli aircraft — a warplane and a drone — near the Israeli-controlled part of the Golan Heights.

The report came as a U.S.-Russia-brokered truce appeared to be holding in Syria on Tuesday, after coming into effect the night before.

The Israeli military quickly denied the Syrian claim. It says that “two surface-to-air missiles were launched from Syria after the mission overnight to target Syrian artillery positions” but that the safety of Israeli planes was not compromised.

The Syrian military statement, reported by the state news agency SANA and state TV, says the Israeli plane was shot down during Israeli air raids on Syrian army positions early on Tuesday. A drone was shot down as well nearby.

Israeli warplanes have conducted several air raids on Syrian army positions over the past weeks after stray shells hit the Israeli-occupied area.

Syria and Israel have been at a state of war for decades. Israel captured the Golan Heights from Syria in the 1967 Mideast war

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10 a.m.

Syrian opposition activists and monitoring groups say the cease-fire in Syria appears to be holding since coming into effect the previous night, despite sporadic and minor violations.

Rami Abdurrahman from the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says “calm is prevailing” in most of the country on Tuesday, though there were minor violations in central Hama province.

Another activist group, the Local Coordination Committees reported some shelling in Aleppo and the southern region of Quneitra, while state media said there were “breaches” of the truce by rebels in the contested city of Aleppo.

Ahmad al-Masalmeh, an opposition activist in the southern province of Daraa — where Syria’s crisis began in 2011 — says the region was also calm.

The week-long, U.S.- and Russia-brokered cease-fire started at sunset Monday.