Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon warned on Wednesday that Israel would respond to any attacks on its territory and not allow its people to come under fire "in any form.”

His warning was issued after militants in Gaza fired a rocket at southern Israel, and as a Syrian mortar shell and small arms fire hit the Israeli-occupied sector of the Golan Heights.

Crowding in Iraqi camps for Syrians who have fled their war-ravaged homeland is raising the risk of disease, the U.N. refugee agency warned Tuesday.

"Pressure to accommodate refugees is growing," said Adrian Edwards, spokesman for the office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.

Fighting between rebels and loyalist forces raged in two Damascus neighborhoods on Tuesday while shelling of a village near the Syrian capital left four members of a family dead, a watchdog said.

"Fierce battles broke out in the Barzeh district of northern Damascus. Shelling in the area wounded five people and caused material damage," said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Heads of clans in the Lebanese border area of Wadi Khaled urged President Michel Suleiman and General Security chief Brig. Gen. Abbas Ibrahim to negotiate with the Syrian authorities the release of Mohammed al-Ahmed.

“We call on Suleiman, Ibrahim and all officials in security agencies to directly intervene and contact the Syrian authorities to free al-Ahmed,” the clans said in a statement on Tuesday.

For millions of Syrians displaced by fighting, every day is a struggle to survive, and for those in Kherbet al-Khaldiye, that means eating and drinking whatever they can forage.

"We eat herbs and collect stagnant rainwater to drink and wash in," says 24-year-old Hisham, his head covered in a red and white chequered keffiyeh scarf.

Gunmen killed two Iraqi engineers, wounded a third and kidnapped another when they attacked a camp near a gas field run by a South Korean firm in Iraq's western desert, officials said on Tuesday.

The attack on the camp, for workers contracted by KOGAS to work on the Akkaz field, occurred at around 10:00 pm (19:00 GMT) on Monday, according to Lieutenant Colonel Mohammed al-Khafaji, the chief of police in the town of Qaim on the Iraq-Syria border.

Fighting between Syria's rebels and loyalist troops raged in two Damascus neighborhoods on Tuesday while shelling of a village near the capital left four members of a family dead, a watchdog said.

"Fierce battles broke out in the Barzeh district of northern Damascus. Shelling in the area wounded five people and caused material damage," said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which relies on a broad network of activists, doctors and lawyers for its reporting.

The month of March was the deadliest in Syria's two-year conflict, with more than 6,000 people killed, a monitoring group said on Monday.

"At least 6,005 people were killed in March. A total of 2,080 were civilians, among them 298 children aged under 16. Another 291 fatalities were women," said Syrian Observatory for Human Rights director Rami Abdel Rahman.

Fresh battles broke out in a flashpoint district of Aleppo on Monday, while violence raged on the road linking the Syrian city to its international airport, a watchdog said.

"Fierce clashes raged between troops and rebels in the east of Sheikh Maqsud district," said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a day after a major rebel advance in the predominantly Kurdish neighborhood.

Algeria's foreign minister said Monday that any decisions taken by just one Syrian group will have a "very short life", after the opposition coalition was handed Syria's seat at the Arab League.

"It is up to the Syrians to decide, and any decisions coming from just one Syrian group -- more than that, any decision coming from a group of Syrians which is subject to external pressures -- risk having a very short life," said Mourad Medelci, speaking on national radio.