Some 23,000 people have fled from Syria to Turkey between June 3 and 15, the U.N. refugee agency said Tuesday.

"New fighting in northern Syria has seen 23,135 refugees fleeing across the border into Turkey's Sanliurfa province," during that period, spokesman William Spindler said, citing figures given by Turkish authorities on Tuesday.

Hizbullah's mouthpiece al-Manar TV station reported on Tuesday new achievements by the Syrian army and the party's fighters along the rugged Syrian-Lebanese border.

Al-Manar said that Syrian troops and Hizbullah fighters controlled Ras al-Kosh and Qornet Ras al-Saabeh on the outskirts of al-Jarajeer in the Syrian area of Qalamoun.

Rebel rocket fire killed at least 34 civilians in Aleppo in one of the bloodiest days of the conflict for government-held areas of Syria's second city, a monitoring group said Tuesday.

The barrage drew condemnation from U.N. envoy Staffan de Mistura, who arrived in Damascus on Monday to meet government officials for a fresh round of peace talks.

The Israeli army's northern command is busy tracking Hizbullah in Syria, its chief, Maj.-Gen. Aviv Kochavi, has said.

“The most prominent sphere is the change this sector has experienced and is experiencing. In our generation, under our watch, we are facing this challenge – and we must know to change,” Kochavi has said, according to the Jerusalem Post daily.

Social Affairs Minister Rashid Derbas has called for joint Lebanese-Jordanian action to establish safe areas in Syria to help the refugees return to their country.

“There is a need for joint Lebanese-Jordanian work to ask for safe areas in Syria,” Derbas told An Nahar daily published on Tuesday.

Australians support the country's involvement in the fight against the Islamic State group (IS) in Iraq, despite fears it raises the risk of terror acts against them, a poll revealed Tuesday.

The 2015 Lowy Institute Poll found that 69 percent of Australians were in favor of the current involvement in air strikes against the jihadists and providing support for Iraqi security forces.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Monday pressed his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov to ensure that Moscow respects the ceasefire in eastern Ukraine, the State Department said.

In a telephone call to Lavrov, Kerry "urged Russia to seize the opportunity of upcoming meetings of the Trilateral Contact Group and its Working Groups to accelerate progress on implementing the Minsk agreements," signed in February, said John Kirby, a State Department spokesman.

At least 20 people were killed and 100 wounded on Monday in Syrian rebel rocket fire on government-held parts of the city of Aleppo, Syrian state media said.

"The number of martyrs in the massacre carried out by terrorists in Aleppo has risen to 20 dead and more than 100 hurt," state television said in a breaking news alert.

Around 40 foreign suicide bombers enter Iraq each month, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said on Monday, calling for countries in the region to curb the flow of foreign fighters.

Suicide bombers are one of the deadliest weapons of the Islamic State (IS) jihadist group, which deploys them in explosives-packed vehicles to breach Iraqi defenses or cause mass civilian casualties in crowded areas.

Kurdish forces seized nearly full control of the Syrian town of Tal Abyad on Monday, fighting only pockets of jihadists on a vital supply line for the Islamic State group.

The Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) advanced into Tal Abyad after taking a border post and cutting off the road south to the de facto IS capital of Raqa, a monitoring group said.