A picture taken on April 26, 2013 shows smoke rising after shelling in Houla in Syria’s Homs province. The opposition National Coalition has accused the regime of using chemical weapons in the northern province of Aleppo, in Homs in central Syria, and in rebel-held areas near Damascus. (Photo credit: AFP/Getty Images)

The Syrian conflict is now two and a half years into a violent and civil bloody war between the Syrian regime of President Bashar al-Assad and various rebel groups. According to a recent report from United Nations investigators, the bloodshed is only intensifying: in a survey of events in Syria between Jan 15 and May 15, the U.N. Human Rights Council’s independent commission on the civil war says it has reached ‘new levels of cruelty and brutality’ – and that there’s no reason to believe the carnage will abate any time soon.

This week, commission chair Paulo Pinheiro told the Human Rights Council that ‘Syria is in free-fall… no one is winning… more weapons will only lead to more dead civilains and wounded.’

Investigators report that there are ‘reasonable grounds’ to believe that chemical agents of an unspecified variety had been deployed in civilian areas. The commission found no conclusive proof determining whether one or both sides in the conflict have deployed chemical weapons, but warn there to be a heightened risk in the future.

On top of the grave risk that nerve gas and other chemical agents could be deployed in civilian areas, ‘non-combatants’ are continually under attack from all sides of the conflict. More than 70,000 civilians have died (with some estimates as high as 100,000) and millions more have been displaced since the civil war broke out over two years ago. The commission concludes that both Assad’s forces and many factions within the rebels are guilty of war crimes against civilains, including torture and rape. Nearly 7 million people, half of them children, are ‘in need of urgent assistance’ due to lack of medical care and food shortages instigated by the conflict.

The U.N. commission ends its report with a strong recommendation for a negotiated settlement:

… A diplomatic surge is the only path to a political settlement. Negotiations must be inclusive, and must represent all facets of Syria’s cultural mosaic.

In the United States, foreign policy hawks such as Sen. John McCain, continue to call on the White House to militarily intervene. Mr McCain believes that America could intervene by launching cruise missiles from the US naval fleet in the region. This, he says, would decapitate Assad’s air defences and would not require boots on the ground or the establishment of a no-fly zone (NFZ).

President Barack Obama has previously said that the use of chemical weapons on civilains would cross a ‘red line’ and therefore may justify intervention. Last month, the White House said it was supportive of Israeli air strikes within the country.