Syria's U.N. ambassador said Wednesday that anti-government groups have killed 500 Syrian security forces and sparked diplomatic fury by comparing the deadly unrest to the riots in Britain.

Britain's U.N. representative dismissed Syrian Ambassador Bashar Jaafari's "ludicrous" comparison between the handling of the worst British riots in a generation and the killing of protesters on the streets of Syrian cities. Rights groups say over 2,000 people, mainly protesters, have been killed.

Syrian forces killed at least 10 people on Thursday while the army stormed another two towns in pursuit of anti-regime protesters, defying Western calls for action after a "chilling" U.N. Security Council briefing.

The killings occurred soon after columns of tanks entered the town of Qusayr in the central province of Homs early on Thursday, sending residents fleeing into the fields, rights activist there said.

A member of Hamas' armed wing was killed Thursday in a "mysterious explosion" in the southern Gaza town of Rafah, the group and Palestinian medical sources said.

The Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades announced the death in a statement, naming the militant as 20-year-old Ali Nayef al-Haj.

Four suspected al-Qaida members have been killed by army fire outside the southern Yemeni city of Zinjibar, most of which has fallen under the control of Islamist militants, a local official said Thursday.

The suspects were killed when their positions were hit by army shells in the villages of al-Khamla and Bajdar outside Zinjibar, the capital of the lawless Abyan province, the official told Agence France Presse requesting anonymity.

A group of people broke into Libya's embassy in Stockholm Thursday and at least one appeared to be threatening to jump from a window, police said, adding the break-in seemed to be part of a demonstration.

"A number of men have broken into the embassy, but there was no embassy personnel there," police spokesman Lennart Loefgren told Agence France Presse, adding it remained unclear how many people were inside the mission.

The Palestinians "strongly condemn" an Israeli decision to approve the construction of 1,600 new settler homes in east Jerusalem, a Palestinian official told Agence France Presse on Thursday.

Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat denounced the Israeli interior ministry's announcement Thursday that it had given final approval for the construction of 1,600 homes in the east Jerusalem neighborhood of Ramat Shlomo.

Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh, recovering in Riyadh from bomb blast wounds, said a Gulf proposal for power transfer which he averted signing in the past should be treated positively.

The embattled veteran leader, whose regime has been facing protests since January, said his ruling General People's Congress party stresses the need to "continue to deal positively with the Gulf initiative," Saba state news agency reported Thursday.

Israel's interior minister Eli Yishai has given final approval for the construction of 1,600 new settler homes in east Jerusalem, his spokesman told Agence France Presse on Thursday.

Roei Lachmanovich also said the interior minister was set to give final approval for another 2,700 settler homes in east Jerusalem neighborhoods in "a couple of days."

Khamis, the feared military commander and son of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, was shown on state television on Wednesday, days after rebels reported his death.

Tripoli denied the claim at the time, but a rebel spokesman on Wednesday insisted that Khamis was dead.

Western nations stepped up demands for U.N. measures against President Bashar Assad after the Syrian leader ignored repeated calls for an end to the bloodshed in his country.

But U.N. Security Council battlelines were drawn when Russia's U.N. envoy said calls for sanctions did not help end the crackdown by Syrian security forces in which rights groups say more than 2,000 civilians have died.