Satellite imagery captured by McKenzie Intelligence Services lays bare the level of destruction. The most striking image shows the dividing line between al-Qassaa on the regime side and Jobar on the rebel side. Grey smudges denote the remains of levelled buildings. Craters dot the roads and streets have been wiped off the map. Smoke rises from the latest strikes.
"There is little sign of daily life here," said McKenzie's Stuart Ray, a former British military intelligence officer. "We could see no cars driving or people on the streets, no shopkeepers opening their stores. It's a wasteland."
According to the United Nations, 91 per cent of Jobar has been destroyed by the regime's strikes, which have intensified in recent weeks. Government territory is regularly hit by mortars from rebel areas of Ghouta, but the damage is nothing to the devastation of the barrel bombs.
The UN identified about 3853 destroyed, 5141 severely damaged and 3547 moderately damaged buildings in the more densely-populated western parts of the enclave. In the Ein Terma neighbourhood, where 18,500 still live, satellite images show 71 per cent of buildings destroyed or damaged.
In Zamalka, another major neighbourhood, 59 per cent of buildings are destroyed or damaged. There has been no water or electricity for two years. Russian and Syrian bombs indiscrimately land on schools and hospitals almost daily.
Since the Government's offensive escalated two weeks ago, 14 medical facilities have been taken out of service, according to the Union of Medical Care and Relief Organisations. More than 10 medical staff and volunteers have been killed, with 20 injured. Doctors treat and operate on patients in underground rooms to escape the air strikes.
"From looking at the satellite images, you can see it's a scorched earth policy," Ray said. "In contrast to Sarajevo, the damage is incomparable. Even in the worst hit areas of Sarajevo some buildings still stood."
He said it was possible the Syrian Government had used thermobaric weapons, explosives that use oxygen from the surrounding air to generate a high-temperature explosion, in an area west of Douma. "All the trees and vegetation are gone and the buildings are no longer there but there are no craters. It's possible they were trying to clear that area to serve as a buffer."
The conflict enters its eighth year this month, having seen hundreds of thousands of people killed and half the pre-war population of 23 million forced from their homes. Eastern Ghouta is not the first Syrian territory to be decimated. Swathes of Homs, Aleppo and Raqqa are uninhabitable after campaigns to oust rebel fighters and Isis.
"Eastern Ghouta is straight out of the Aleppo playbook," one Western diplomat told the Daily Telegraph. "I'm afraid we'll have no option but to sit and watch it all play out again. What we saw in Aleppo could pale in comparison to what's to come in Eastern Ghouta."
There is a fear that the battle will become one of attrition. Assad's "starve or surrender" tactic, as it has become known, has proved effective and is much less costly for his troops.
Cut off from the outside world, residents survive on what they can grow to eat and whatever they can smuggle in through one of their remaining tunnels. Tending to crops has become a deadly business. Bread in Eastern Ghouta costs nearly 22 times the amount it does in government-held Damascus.
Under a truce declared by Russia, the Syrian Government opened a "humanitarian" corridor for those who wanted to leave. So far only an elderly Pakistani couple have passed through. Residents fear a repeat of Aleppo, where civilians who made it out were tortured, arrested or displaced. "Russia is the only one who can stop this now," the diplomat said. "But they seem impervious to international condemnation and shame ... The question is whether Russia is serious about exerting pressure on Assad, or if it is no longer capable."
