U.N. secretary-general Ban Ki-moon said Tuesday that the situation in Syria has become unacceptable and called on the Security Council to unite on the issue.

"The situation in Syria has become an unacceptable and intolerable situation," Ban said in Bogor, Indonesia, where he addressed the country's peacekeepers working for the U.N.

Syrian security forces on Monday killed 30 people across the country, activists said, following unprecedented pre-dawn deadly clashes in the heart of the capital Damascus.

Nine people were killed in Deir al-Zour, six in Daraa, three in Hama, three in Idlib, three in Aleppo, three in the Damascus suburbs of Qatana and Douma, two in al-Qameshli and one in Homs, the Local Coordination Committees, the main activist group spurring protests on the ground, said.

France on Monday proposed a U.N. Security Council statement backing U.N.-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan's mission to end bloodshed in Syria and ease the international deadlock over the crisis.

With Annan and other U.N. efforts to halt the killing and gain humanitarian access already meeting resistance from President Bashar al-Assad, envoys said it had become urgent to send a "strong message" to the Damascus government.

Russia called on Syria Monday to immediately accept demands by the International Committee for the Red Cross for a daily two-hour humanitarian truce after talks with the Geneva-based body's head.

The crucial backing from Moscow to exert stronger pressure on its Soviet-era ally came after ICRC President Jakob Kellenberger huddled with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov for about 90 minutes.

Turkey is working relentlessly to locate and repatriate two journalists missing in Syria for about 10 days, Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said Monday, amid reports one of them had been tortured.

"We sadly do not know where they are and we do not have any confirmed information. But we are working round the clock to find them and bring them back to Turkey safe and sound," he told a news conference.

An Egyptian military court on Monday acquitted Mohammed al-Zawahiri, the brother of al-Qaida's leader Ayman, overturning a death sentence in a new trial, his lawyer and his son told Agence France Presse.

The court also acquitted Mohammed Islambouli, whose Islamist brother Khaled assassinated president Anwar Sadat in 1981, they said. They had been convicted of planning militant attacks.

The head of the International Committee of the Red Cross said Monday he felt encouraged by Russia's position on Syria after trying to secure stronger pressure from Moscow on its Soviet-era ally.

ICRC President Jakob Kellenberger huddled with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov for about 90 minutes before flying to Brussels to ask NATO members to exert similar influence with Syria's rebel forces.

Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat on Monday condemned an attack by an unidentified gunman who killed four people at a Jewish school in France, including an Israeli-French dual citizen.

"We strongly condemn all terrorist operations, and in particular the attack today in Toulouse," he said in an statement.

Libya's vice-premier said Monday his country was determined to have Moammar Gadhafi’s ex-spy chief, also wanted by the International Criminal Court, extradited to stand trial on home soil.

"We are determined to get (Abdullah) Senussi back, because this man has committed crimes against Libyans. He must answer to these in Libya, in front of Libyan courts," Mustafa Abu Shagur said on arrival in Mauritania where Senussi was arrested Friday.

A team of experts dispatched by U.N.-Arab League special envoy Kofi Annan has arrived in Syria, where it will remain as long as progress is made on a monitoring operation to end the bloodshed, a spokesman said Monday.

"The mission has arrived. There are five people with expertise in political, peacekeeping and mediation," Ahmed Fawzi, spokesman for Annan told Agence France Presse.