At least 40 people have been killed in violence in Syria, rights groups and activists say, as pro- and anti-government forces reportedly clashed in Deraa province and elsewhere, with protests against Bashar al-Assad’s government continuing.

The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Monday that security forces shot dead at least 16 civilians across the province of Deraa, where protests against Assad first began in earnest.

However, local activists in Deraa told the Reuters news agency that the death toll from clashes between forces loyal to Assad, the Syrian president, and those who have joined protesters against his rule could be as high as 40.

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At least 8 people were injured as violent clashes broke out in the early morning of Friday in Mansoura City in Aden when tribesmen looted the city’s Local Authority building.

Eyewitnesses said that the militants were seen carrying machineguns and rocket-propelled grenades (RPG).

The tribesmen came from the southern governorate of Shabwah, led by Sheikh Hassan Banan al-Awlaki, who declared his support to the Southern Secessionist Movement years ago.

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Israel has launched a fresh air strike on Gaza in which two people have been reportedly killed and another civilian injured, raising the Palestinian death toll to 11.

Sunday’s raid came hours after the Islamic Jihad movement in Gaza said it had accepted a ceasefire agreement.

“The Islamic Jihad has responded [positively] to the truce effort, while it reserves its right to react to any aggression [by Israel],” Abu Ahmad, the spokesman for the movement’s armed wing, Al-Quds Brigades, said in a statement on Sunday.

The spike in violence came as funerals were being held for two Palestinians killed in Israeli airstrikes overnight. Egypt had been mediating truce efforts over the weekend and late on Sunday morning.

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Kurdish rebels killed 24 soldiers and policemen Wednesday in a series of pre-dawn attacks in south-eastern Turkey, inflicting the heaviest single blow on the Turkish military for years.

Turkey responded with airstrikes on suspected bases of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in northern Iraq while Turkish troops crossed the Iraqi border in pursuit of the rebels, the NTV channel reported.

By late Wednesday, CNNTurk was reporting a total of 21 PKK members killed in those operations, either in Turkey or northern Iraq - although there was no official confirmation of that figure.

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More than 30 people were killed in clashes across Syria, including 14 civilians and 17 soldiers, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Monday, as army forces continued to pound the cities of Homs and Qamishli.

Seven of the 14 civilians killed on Sunday were gunned down by security forces in the central city of Homs, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said, adding that seven others were killed in other towns.

Seventeen security personnel died the same day in clashes with mutinous troops refusing orders to shoot on anti-regime protesters, the watchdog said.

“It was like a war scene in Homs, where blasts and sound bombs were heard all over town, with heavy machine guns also being fired,” said officials with the Local Coordination Committees (LCC), which organizes protests on the ground.

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