Syrian forces killed 19 civilians on Sunday across the country, including six in Homs despite the presence of U.N. observers in the rebel province to pave the way for a 300-strong mission approved by the Security Council, monitors said.

Six civilians were killed in Idlib, five in rural Damascus, six in Homs and two in Daraa, the Local Coordination Committees, the main activist group spurring anti-regime protests on the ground, said.

The United States, its ally Jordan and 15 other countries will next month participate in military exercises to be held in the kingdom, Jordan's military said in a statement on Sunday.

U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Martin Dempsey, and his Jordanian counterpart Meshaal Zaben discussed the preparations for the land, sea and air exercises, the statement added.

Syrian woman blogger Razan Ghazzawi was among eight Syrian activists arrested in February to be charged and brought before a military court, human rights lawyer Anwar Bunni said on Sunday.

"The eight activists will face military justice for publishing and distributing forbidden tracts under Clause 148 of the military penal code," Bunni said, adding that if convicted they could be jailed for up to five years.

The U.N. refugee agency UNHCR said on Sunday cash-strapped Jordan needs help to cope with hosting tens of thousands of Syrians who have fled the unrest in their country to the neighboring kingdom.

"Jordan has always been generous to refugees. Neighboring and other friendly countries should help the kingdom cope with the Syrian refugees," UNHCR representative in Jordan, Andrew Harper, told Prime Minister Awan Khasawneh at a meeting.

Israeli forces are carrying out more special operations beyond the country's borders and will be ready to attack Iran's nuclear sites if ordered, the chief-of-staff said in an interview on Sunday.

In an extract from an interview with the top-selling Yediot Aharanot daily, Lieutenant General Benny Gantz said that 2012 would be a critical year in efforts to halt what Israel and much of the international community believe is an Iranian nuclear arms program.

At least 1,350 Palestinian prisoners being held in Israeli jails are observing an open-ended hunger strike, the Israeli Prisons Service said on Sunday, after another 150 inmates began refusing food.

"There are now 1,350 Palestinian prisoners on hunger strike," said Sivan Weizman, spokeswoman for the Israel Prisons Service (IPS).

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sought to sidestep strife in his right-wing coalition on Sunday by forming a committee to seek legal solutions to contested settlement projects.

The dispute centers on the government's policy on settlements in the occupied West Bank and its commitment to dismantle a number of unauthorized settler outposts in line with a supreme court ruling of August 2011.

An Israeli court has ordered a group of Jewish settlers to leave a house in the southern West Bank city of Hebron after ruling that their claim to ownership was false, court documents showed.

In a hearing at Jerusalem District Court, Judge Ram Winograd ruled late last week that the settlers' argument that they had legally purchased the property, "does not hold water."

U.N. envoy Kofi Annan on Sunday asked the Damascus regime and the opposition to immediately halt violence and the use of heavy weapons.

"I urge all forces whether governmental, opposition or others to put down their weapons and work with the United Nations monitors to consolidate the fragile cessation of violence in all its forms," Annan said in a statement.

A French man working for the International Committee of Red Cross (ICRC) was kidnapped in Yemen Saturday on his way to the port city of Hudaida, an ICRC spokeswoman told AFP Sunday.

"We haven't had any contact with his captors. We are very concerned for his health and well-being," spokeswoman Marie-Servane Desjonqueres said, adding "We are hoping for his immediate and unconditional release."