The United States and the European Union warned Tuesday that they will within days take further punitive steps against Syria over its deadly crackdown on pro-democracy protests, as France said the U.N. Security Council is close to achieving a majority for a resolution to condemn the repression.

The warning came as diplomats in Brussels told Agence France Presse that EU ambassadors were due to decide Tuesday whether to add President Bashar al-Assad's name to a list of Syrian officials targeted by a travel ban and assets freeze.

Half of Kuwait's MPs urged the government on Tuesday to sever ties with Damascus and expel its ambassador in protest at Syria's deadly crackdown on anti-regime demonstrators.

Twenty-five out of 50 MPs called on the Kuwaiti government to "cut ties with the repressive (Syrian) regime and to expel its ambassador in Kuwait," in a statement received by Agence France Presse.

An Israeli deputy minister is to meet members of the Syrian opposition in the offices of Austria's far-right Freedom Party (FPOe) in Vienna later on Tuesday, an FPOe spokesman revealed.

The Israeli official is Ayoob Kara, deputy minister for development of the Negev and Galilee, and he will meet five Syrian opposition members, the names of whom were not revealed, said spokesman Karl-Heinz Gruensteidl, confirming a corresponding report in the tabloid daily Oesterreich.

Syria's opposition called for a general strike Wednesday in defiance of a government campaign to crush pro-democracy protests, as the army pressed its siege of the restive town of Tall Kalakh, the latest target of its violent crackdown.

"Wednesday will be a day of general strike in Syria," said a statement posted on the Facebook page of the Syrian Revolution 2011, an Internet-based opposition group that has been a motor of protests that erupted two months ago.

A mass grave was discovered on Monday in the southern Syrian town of Daraa, at the heart of protests roiling the country for two months and virtually shut off from the outside world, an activist told Agence France Presse by telephone.

"The army today allowed residents to venture outside their homes for two hours a day," said Ammar Qurabi, of the National Organization for Human Rights in Syria.

Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini drew a distinction between Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and Libyan leader Moammer Gadhafi, saying Assad had proposed reforms and played a strong diplomatic role.

"Assad made promises for reforms that he didn't keep. Gadhafi never promised reforms," Frattini said in an interview with Corriere della Sera daily.

Britain summoned Syria’s ambassador Friday in coordination with other EU nations to warn of fresh sanctions against the regime if it fails to stop a crackdown on protesters, as Turkey's premier said it was premature to say whether President Bashar al-Assad should quit.

In a statement, the Foreign Office said it had "called in the Syrian Ambassador Dr. Sami Khiyami ... to express the UK’s strong concerns about the ongoing situation in Syria."

Syrian families fearing fresh violence during anti-regime protests on Friday fled into the area of Wadi Khaled in northern Lebanon, a local official told Agence France Presse.

"Around 50 Syrian families from Homs, Tall Kalakh and Bab al-Sebaa entered Wadi Khaled via the illegal Naoura crossing," Fayez Abdullah, mayor of the village of Amayer in Wadi Khaled, told AFP.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Thursday blasted Syria's use of strength as "a sign of remarkable weakness" at a news conference in the Greenland capital.

Syria's repression of protests "is a sign of remarkable weakness," Clinton told reporters at an Arctic Council meeting, stressing Syria continued with "a brutal crackdown" on demonstrators despite overwhelming international condemnation.

The U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees on Wednesday said it had suspended operations for 50,000 people in central and southern Syria in the face of the persistent violence sweeping the country.

A U.N. Relief and Works Agency spokesman said the organization had stopped providing services in a refugee camp in the central city of Homs, a hub of anti-regime protests, and had also closed down its operations in and around the southern city of Daraa.