Thirty-eight people have been killed in clashes in two days in northwest Syria, a rights activist says, as dissidents meeting in Brussels call for the isolation of President Bashar al-Assad.
The updated toll includes six members of the Syrian security forces.
The claims came as violence flared on the Golan Heights, the disputed Israeli-occupied territory on the border of Syria and Israel.
Israeli troops opened fire on Sunday as protesters from Syria stormed a ceasefire line in the occupied Golan Heights, with Damascus saying 23 demonstrators were killed.
Hundreds of protesters rushed the ceasefire line, cutting through barbed wire as they tried to enter the Golan Heights in a repeat of demonstrations last month that saw thousands mass along Israel's north.
Israeli forces reportedly blamed Syrian President Assad, who has frequently used an anti-Israeli stance to bolster support, of falsifying the death toll and also of fomenting unrest.
Troubled recent history of the Golan Heights: click here
Rahman earlier gave a toll of 25 - 19 civilians and six security agents - but warned that number could rise as military and security forces continued operations in the northwest Idlib province.
In Syria, activists were mourning people killed in confrontation with government forces.
"Thirty-eight people were killed in shootings in the region of Jisrash Shughur, 10 yesterday and 28 today," Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, told AFP.
Residents of the central city of Hama, where at least 53 people were reported killed during anti-regime protests on Friday, said nearly 100,000 people were staging a protest during a three-day strike that began on Saturday.
On Saturday, an activist in Jisrash Shughur said "security forces opened fire to scatter more than 1,000 demonstrators protesting after the funeral of a civilian killed on Friday" in protests at the nearby village of Has.
Syria's official SANA news agency reported at the time that "a member of the army was killed and a policeman injured in clashes" in Jisrash Shughur.
"Armed groups attacked a police station and military barracks in the area" and one assailant was killed, SANA said.
Rights groups say more than 1,100 civilians have been killed and at least 10,000 arrested in Syria since protests erupted in mid-March.
DAMASUS BLAMES 'TERRORISTS'
Damascus insists that the unrest is the work of "armed terrorist gangs" backed by Islamists and foreign agitators.
Syria has freed more than 450 political prisoners and prisoners of conscience since Tuesday as part of a general amnesty announced by Assad, Rahman told AFP on Sunday.
Most of the released are Islamists or Kurds, he added.
Syrian Prime Minister Adel Safar, meanwhile, ordered the creation of a committee tasked with drafting a law on political parties, SANA reported.
The current constitution stipulates that the ruling Baath party is "the leader of state and society" and political pluralism has been at the forefront of demands by pro-reform dissidents.
Syria's Foreign Minister Walid Muallem, meanwhile, made a brief visit to the United Arab Emirates where he met Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammad bin Zayed al-Nahayan.
"The demands of reform and the need for stability can go hand in hand as they can be reconciled," the official WAM news agency reported Sheikh Mohammad as saying.
