Amnesty International said on Monday that the authorities in Yemen must stop killing anti-regime protesters immediately or risk civil war.

"The Yemeni authorities must immediately stop the killing of peaceful protesters by security forces," the London-based rights group said in a statement following reports that dozens of people have been shot dead in the capital Sanaa since Sunday.

Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas Monday vowed to submit a bid for U.N. recognition of a Palestinian state this week, amid warnings that sticking to the status quo could fuel "an explosion of violence."

Despite strong opposition from Israel and the United States, Abbas met with U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to tell him he would go ahead with the controversial move on Friday.

Members of the Palestinian parliament in exile met in Ramallah on Monday to show support for the campaign to seek full membership in the United Nations, a senior official said.

Some 50 members of the Palestinian National Council, which has 669 seats and represents Palestinians worldwide, met at al-Amari refugee camp.

Israel said on Monday it was withdrawing its police representative from Turkey and ending bilateral cooperation between their forces as the diplomatic crisis between the two former allies deepened.

"Public Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch has ordered the transfer to Bucharest of the Israel Police representative in Ankara," ministry spokesman Tal Volovich told Agence France Presse.

French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe Monday warned of the risk of an "explosion of violence" if the Palestinian situation is not resolved, saying the status quo was "neither acceptable nor tenable."

"The relaunch of the peace process is needed," Juppe told an audience at a think-tank in New York, amid frantic diplomatic efforts to stop the Palestinians seeking U.N. recognition of their statehood.

French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe accused the Syrian regime Monday of "crimes against humanity" and slammed the U.N. Security Council for failing to take a strong stand on the unrest.

"Crimes against humanity are committed in Syria. The silence of the Security Council is unacceptable," Juppe told the Council on Foreign Relations, at a talk held on the sidelines of a week of U.N. summits.

A Syrian judge freed opposition figure Georges Sabra on Monday, almost two months after he was arrested at his home in Qatana near Damascus, his lawyer said.

"The judge decided to release Georges Sabra today after questioning on charges that were brought against him," said the lawyer Khalil Maatuk.

Fierce fighting raged Monday in Bani Walid as new regime fighters attacked the town where Moammar Gadhafi's son Seif al-Islam is holed up, possibly with his father, said the new authorities.

"The revolutionaries came to Bani Walid this morning and engaged in a hard battle," Abdullah Kenshil, a senior official in the National Transitional Council (NTC), told Agence France Presse.

Security forces shot dead at least 31 people in Yemen on Monday, among them two children killed by snipers, protest organizers and medics said, as the United States called for restraint.

Organizers of anti-regime demonstrations in Sanaa said in a statement that 27 people were killed on Monday and that 942 people were wounded by gunfire over the past 48 hours, and that 47 are in critical condition.

A U.N. envoy to Yemen and the Gulf Cooperation Council chief arrived in Sanaa Monday, state news agency Saba and an airport official said, as deadly clashes raged in the capital.

"U.N. envoy Jamal Benomar and the convoy accompanying him arrived in Sanaa," Saba reported, while an official at Sanaa airport told Agence France Presse that GCC Secretary General Abdullatif al-Zayani also arrived in the restive capital.