The European Union ambassador to Syria is to remain in Damascus despite an Italian proposal Tuesday to recall all ambassadors from the 27 EU nations.

"Our ambassador will remain in Damascus to observe what's happening on the ground," said Michael Mann, spokesman for EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton.

The Israeli secret service Mossad was responsible for the assassination last month of an Iranian scientist in Tehran, Germany's Spiegel Online news website reported.

The killing of Dariush Rezaei-Nejad was "the first serious action taken by the new Mossad chief Tamir Pardo," according to an unidentified Israeli intelligence source quoted by Spiegel Online.

Italy has recalled its ambassador in Syria for consultation given the "horrible repression against the civilian population," the foreign ministry said on Tuesday.

"The Foreign Minister Franco Frattini has given instructions for our ambassador in Damascus, Achille Amerio, to return to Italy for consultations," the ministry said in a statement.

The European Union on Tuesday added Syrian Defense Minister Ali Habib Mahmoud and four others to its blacklist of individuals and businesses associated with the ongoing repression there.

The EU's official journal also showed that the extended lists includes Mohammed Moufleh, head of Syrian military intelligence in Hama, the scene of a bloody crackdown by the army which activists say has left more than 100 dead.

Israel is willing to begin new peace talks using the 1967 lines as a basis for negotiations, if the Palestinians drop their U.N. membership bid, an Israeli government official confirmed on Tuesday.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, the official confirmed that Israel has been working with Washington and members of the international peace-making Quartet to draw up a new framework that could re-launch stalled talks.

The U.N. Security Council was to hold a second day of talks on Syria Tuesday after President Bashar Assad's tanks shelled the protest hub of Hama on the first day of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

At least 24 civilians were reported killed across Syria on Monday, an activist said, among them 10 during protests after special evening prayers.

Fifteen people were wounded on Tuesday by a car bomb targeting a church in Kirkuk in northern Iraq, a police officer and a priest said.

The bomb exploded at the Holy Family church in the north of Kirkuk at about 5:30 am (0230 GMT), wounding 15 people including church staff and people in neighboring houses, the high-ranking officer in the Kirkuk police said.

Israeli warplanes raided the Gaza Strip early Tuesday, witnesses and the Israeli military said.

The air raid targeted a tunnel dug under the border between the south of the Strip and Egypt, near Rafah, the Palestinian witnesses said.

The United States on Monday weighed possible further sanctions against Damascus as it hoped for "a strong and unified message" from the U.N. Security Council over the deadly crackdown in Syria.

"We've issued now several sets of sanctions against (President Bashar) Assad and his regime," State Department deputy spokesman Mark Toner told reporters.

The Syrian army pressed on Monday with a deadly crackdown on anti-regime dissent, even as international condemnation swelled ahead of a U.N. meeting on the crisis.

The Local Coordination Committees reported Monday evening that the army was firing tank shells and machinegun rounds at several neighborhoods in the flashpoint protest city of Hama. One person was killed in the shelling, the committees said.