Six out of 10 Jewish settlers were drafted into combat units for their compulsory military service, an Israeli army study showed on Friday, indicating a sharp rise in numbers.

According to a study on draft trends which was published by the military's personnel division, Jewish settlers are more likely than regular Israelis to try to join combat units.

Tens of thousands of protesters gathered in Cairo's Tahrir Square on Friday for a mass rally aimed at pushing Egypt's military rulers to cede power 10 months after an uprising ousted Hosni Mubarak.

As general elections draw near -- the first polls since Mubarak was ousted in February -- protesters are demanding more control over the constitution the new parliament is set to draft and a shift to civilian rule.

French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said on Friday that the "time has come to increase sanctions" against the Syrian regime.

"The situation is no longer sustainable," and "the ongoing repression is unacceptable," Juppe told reporters during a visit to Ankara.

The risk of civil war looms large over Syria as army defectors increasingly take aim at regime forces and diplomacy fails to resolve the escalating crisis, experts say.

"We are moving down that track and the longer the international community and the Arab League delay (action), the sooner we will be there," said Salman Shaikh, head of the Brookings Doha Center.

Syrian security forces on Friday shot dead 20 civilians, including four children, in the regions of Hama, Daraa, Homs and Reef Damascus, the Local Coordination Committees said, on the eve of an Arab League deadline for Syria to stop its lethal crackdown on protesters and as Turkey warned of the risk of civil war.

The latest bloodletting came as thousands of protesters took to the streets in defiance of massive security deployments to urge nations to expel Syrian ambassadors, activists said.

More than two dozen websites belonging to the government of Syria are being hosted by servers in the United States, Canada and Germany, according to a report by Canadian researchers.

The report released Thursday said the operations raise legal questions because they may violate Canadian and U.S. sanctions against Syria, which has used police and military forces for the past eight months to put down a popular uprising.

European nations said Thursday they have key Arab support for a U.N. resolution condemning human rights abuses by the Syrian government.

Diplomats from Germany, France and Britain tabled the resolution at the U.N. General Assembly's human rights committee on Thursday for a vote expected next Tuesday, officials said.

The United States on Thursday disagreed with Russia's assessment that attacks by renegade Syrian troops risked plunging Syria into civil war, blaming the regime in Damascus for the violence.

"We think that's an incorrect assessment," U.S. State Department deputy spokesman Mark Toner told reporters after Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov made the assessment.

Hundreds of Coptic Christians marching in Cairo on Thursday came under attack by assailants throwing stones and bottles and 25 people were lightly injured in subsequent clashes, a security official said.

They were marching to demand justice for the Christian victims of a clash with soldiers in October that left at least 25 people dead, most of them Christians.

Catherine Ashton, the European Union's foreign affairs chief, said Thursday that Syria's President Bashar al-Assad should step aside amid intensifying pressure on his authorities to end violence.

"It's time for President Assad to stand down," Ashton said following talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Moscow.