France on Wednesday demanded access to the victims of an attack in Syria that killed a U.S. war correspondent and French photojournalist, and summoned Syria's envoy to Paris.

Syria has meanwhile denied that it was aware that the journalists had entered the country.

Russia on Wednesday expressed "serious concern" about the humanitarian situation in Syria and said it backed an International Committee of the Red Cross call for a daily two-hour truce that could provide help to civilians.

"We are seriously concerned by incoming reports about the difficult humanitarian situation in Syria," said Russian foreign ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich.

Syria's main opposition group on Wednesday urged the international community to create "safe havens" in the country and called on Russia to force the regime to allow access for humanitarian convoys.

At a news conference in Paris, the Syrian National Council said it would attend a summit of the countries known as the "Friends of Syria" and ask for safe zones to protect civilians and allow the opposition to organize.

Two Western journalists were among 26 people killed on Wednesday as Syrian forces pounded the rebel city of Homs, activists said, while calls mounted for a truce to allow in humanitarian aid.

The latest barrage came a day after security forces killed at least 68 across the country, adding to an overall toll of 7,636 since anti-regime protests erupted last March, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

An Israeli committee was on Wednesday to approve construction of 500 new homes in the West Bank settlement of Shilo and retroactively legalize more than 200 built without permits, a spokesman said.

The committee "will meet today to approve construction of 500 units," civil administration spokesman Guy Inbar told Agence France Presse.

The death toll in Syria since protests erupted against the regime of President Bashar Assad in March last year has reached 7,636, a human rights group said on Wednesday.

The toll consists of 5,542 civilians, 1,692 soldiers and police, and some 400 rebel troops, the head of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, Rami Abdel Rahman, told Agence France Presse.

An international rights group urged the United States, where Yemen's outgoing President Ali Abdullah Saleh is staying, to probe his forces' deadly crackdown on opponents during a year-long uprising.

"The United States has an obligation to investigate the serious and credible allegations of torture and other widespread violations brought against Saleh," the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) said in a statement late Tuesday.

Syria's embattled leader, Bashar Assad, appears to be losing one of his last bastions of reliable support: the Druze Arab community in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

In the snow-covered villages of this strategic highland, Druze are quietly breaking a long-standing code of silence and — for the first time since Israel captured the Golan from Syria in 1967 — holding protests against the Syrian government for its brutal crackdown on opponents. Anti-Syria graffiti has sprouted up, and hundreds of people have joined a Golan-linked Facebook group critical of Assad.

The prime minister's top spokesman has resigned six months into the job, Israeli media reported Wednesday, injecting new turmoil into Benjamin Netanyahu's troubled bureau shortly before an important White House visit.

Israeli newspapers, TV and radio stations reported that Yoaz Hendel quit after Netanyahu criticized the way he handled suspicions against the prime minister's chief of staff Natan Eshel, who was forced out this week over a sexual harassment scandal.

The landmark murder and corruption trial of ousted Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak enters its last day of hearings on Wednesday, with the judge expected to announce the date of the verdict.

The trial could see the toppled dictator, his interior minister Habib al-Adly and six security chiefs sent to the gallows if convicted of complicity in the deaths of peaceful protesters during the uprising that overthrew him a year ago.