Gunmen using silencers killed a town mayor's bodyguard and four of his women relatives in a house north of the Iraqi capital, security officials said on Sunday.

"Gunmen attacked the house of a bodyguard of the mayor of Tarmiyah," said police First Lieutenant Uday Sarhan. "They attacked the house at around 11:30 pm (2030 GMT) and killed five people."

Dozens of Syrian refugees have fled across the border into Turkey since Syrian troops stormed the rebel stronghold of Idlib near the border, a Turkish government official said Sunday.

At least 189 Syrians have crossed into Turkey since Saturday, the official told Agence France Presse, adding the figure tended to increase.

Israel will continue air strikes against Gaza "as long as necessary," Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday, giving no indication that a ground operation was likely for now.

"We extracted a high price from them and will continue to do so," he said at the start of the weekly cabinet meeting. "We will act as long as necessary."

The United States expressed concern Saturday over deadly violence between Israel and Palestinians across the Gaza border and urged both sides to restore calm.

"We are deeply concerned by the renewal of violence in southern Israel," said State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland in a statement. "We call on both sides to make every effort to restore calm."

The United Nations called on Iran to ban the death penalty in cases that do not meet standards of "serious crime" as defined by international law, according to a report to be published Monday.

In the report, special U.N. rapporteur Ahmed Shaheed "urges the Government to prohibit the death penalty for cases that do not meet the standard of 'serious crime' as defined by international law, and recommends that authorities commute capital sentences for individuals whose crimes do not meet that standard".

Defense Minister Ehud Barak warned on Saturday that Israel will continue to hit Palestinians who attack its citizens, after air strikes on Gaza left 15 Palestinians dead.

Syria warned on Saturday of legal measures against media organizations who allow their reporters to sneak into the violence-hit country, where three Western journalists have been killed.

The information ministry said authorities will take "the necessary measures against these people and these (media) organizations in conformity with the law," state-run SANA news agency reported.

A top U.S. intelligence official had talks in Algiers Saturday ahead of a regional security conference, the official APS news agency reported.

Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence Michael Vickers discussed the security situation and U.S.-Algerian cooperation in the fight against terrorism and organized crime with Interior Minister Daho Ould Kablia, it said, quoting a ministry statement.

German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle arrived Saturday in Yemen for a brief visit to discuss bilateral cooperation with the country's new president, Saba news agency said.

Westerwelle will hold talks with President Abdrabuh Mansour Hadi on "fields of bilateral cooperation," the state news agency said.

French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe implicitly slammed Russia's stance on a draft U.N. resolution on Syria on Saturday, saying there were no grounds to demand a simultaneous halt to violence.

"Currently any possibility of reaching an agreement over a Security Council accord is blocked," Juppe, who will be in New York on Monday to discuss the draft, said at the close of EU foreign ministers' talks in the Danish capital.