By Weedah Hamzah

Beirut (dpa) - Humanitarian assistance to three besieged Syrian towns, which are facing shortages of food and medical supplies, will not arrive before Monday, a Red Cross official said.

The delivery operation "won't start before Monday for logistical reasons," Pawel Krzysiek, a spokesman of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Syria, told dpa Saturday.

He added that UN Agencies and the Syrian Red Crescent teams are working hard to make this operation happen.

On Thursday, the UN announced that the Syrian government was prepared to allow in aid into Madaya, a rebel-held town about 25 kilometres north-west of the capital, Damascus, which has been under siege since July by forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, aided by fighters from the allied Lebanese Shiite Hezbollah movement.

The town's residents are suffering from severe malnutrition, according to aid groups.

The two other villages, Foua and Kefraya, are regime-held Shiite towns which have, since April, been under siege by opposition Sunni rebels in the north-western province of Idlib.

Amer Burhan, an activist at a field hospital in Zabadani, a town near Madaya, said a man and his 9-year-old boy died Saturday from starvation in Madaya.

On Friday the medical charity Doctors Without Borders said 23 people have died of starvation since December 1 at a clinic the group supports in Madaya.

More than 250,00 people are estimated to have been killed since Syria's conflict started in 2011.

At least 39 people were died Saturday when a jet struck a courthouse run by al-Qaeda's Syria branch, al-Nusra Front, in Idlib, a monitoring group reported.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said most of those killed were al-Nusra fighters and prisoners, who were inside the court building that also houses a jail.

The Observatory head, Rami Abdel-Rahman, told dpa that the strike had been carried out by a Russian warplane, resulting also in a large number of wounded, some seriously.

The courthouse is located near a public market in the town of Maaret al-Numan in Idlib, which is mainly controlled by Islamist rebels led by al-Nusra Front.

Russia, an ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, launched an air campaign in Syria in September, saying its targets were the Islamic State and other extremists there.

Major world powers, including Russia, have in recent months stepped up their efforts to reach a political solution to Syria's conflict.

The Syrian government said Saturday that it is prepared to attend UN-sponsored peace talks later this month in Geneva, but wants to see a list of opposition representatives who will attend, the country's foreign minister said.

Walid al-Moallem expressed "Syria's readiness to participate" in the talks to UN envoy Staffan de Mistura, according to Syria's official news agency SANA.

"Syria stressed the need to get a list of terrorist organizations and a list of the names of the Syrian opposition figures, who will participate in the Geneva talks," the foreign minister was quoting as saying at a meeting in Damascus.

The Syrian government has repeatedly described as "terrorists" the rebels fighting to oust President Bashar al-Assad.

De Mistrura arrived in Damascus on Friday to discuss preparations for the Geneva negotiations scheduled for January 25 between representatives of the Syrian regime and the opposition.

He will also visit Iran, a major ally of al-Assad, for talks on the Geneva gathering, UN sources said.

The Syrian opposition has said it is ready to attend the negotiations, but insists that al-Assad have no role in the transitional process.

Russia and Iran refuse any agreement that would force al-Assad to step down, while the United States and other countries backing the rebels want him out of power.