A Palestinian was killed on Friday when Israeli troops opened fire at him in an area near the border in the northern Gaza Strip, medical sources said.

Ashraf al-Qudra, a spokesman for Gaza's emergency services, confirmed a man in his early 20s was shot dead by troops near the border, but said they had not yet been able to retrieve his body.

A Russian ship that tried to deliver attack helicopters to Syria last month has again left its Arctic port carrying the same military cargo, the state's military export agency said on Friday.

"The Mi-25 helicopters subject for return to Syria after their repair are currently aboard the Alaed, which is sailing from the port in Murmansk to another port in Russia," Interfax quoted a Rosoboronexport statement as saying.

U.N. observers in Syria are ready to go to the central village of Treimsa, where 150 people were reported massacred, if a ceasefire is in place, mission chief Major General Robert Mood said on Friday.

"UNSMIS stands ready to go in and seek verification of the facts, if and when there is a credible ceasefire," Mood, the head of the U.N. Supervision Mission in Syria, told a news conference in Damascus.

Israeli border police killed a man and wounded another when the two tried to cross the Egyptian border into Israel, the army said on Friday, with a security source saying the two were unarmed Gazans.

"Overnight, Israeli border police identified two suspects infiltrating Israel through the Israel-Egypt border," an army spokesman said.

Syria's regime blames "bloodthirsty media" and "terrorist gangs" for a massacre in the village of Treimsa in the central province of Hama that rights activists say left at least 150 people dead, state-run SANA news agency said Friday.

"The bloodthirsty media in collaboration with gangs of armed terrorists massacred residents of Treimsa village ... to sway public opinion against Syria and its people and provoke international intervention on the eve of a U.N. Security Council meeting," SANA said.

U.N.-Arab League special envoy Kofi Annan is set to hold talks on Monday with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, Annan’s spokesman confirmed.

Ahmed Fawzi told Agence France Presse that the two will meet on Monday in Moscow.

Syria's main opposition alliance Friday urged the U.N. Security Council to pass a binding resolution against Damascus following reports by activists that regime forces massacred at least 150 villagers.

"To stop this bloody madness which threatens the entity of Syria, as well as peace and the security in the region and in the world, requires an urgent and sharp resolution of the Security Council under Chapter VII (of the U.N. Charter) which protects the Syrian people," the Syrian National Council said.

The U.S. said Friday that Syrian officials would be "held accountable" if they failed to safeguard the country's chemical weapons after a report suggested some were being moved out of storage.

The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday that intelligence reports suggested some chemical weapons were on the move, but the reasons for the transfers were unclear.

Syrian troops with tanks and helicopters slaughtered more than 150 people in a central village, rights activists said Friday, casting a dark shadow over efforts to stop the bloodshed.

The head of Tunisia's ruling Islamist party Ennahda called on Thursday for national consensus at the launch of its first congress at home in 24 years, held at a time of political and religious tensions.

"We want to convey a message from this congress, this congress of a union of the Tunisian people. We are a united people," Rached Ghannouchi told around 10,000 supporters.