Syrian forces pounded Homs on Monday as they pressed their campaign against rebel strongholds in the city, while 34 people were killed across the strife-torn country, a watchdog said.

Monday's casualties come a day after 67 people were killed nationwide, including 15 in Homs province, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

A suicide bomber killed on Monday Yemen's southern army commander, General Salem Ali Qoton, in an attack in the port city of Aden, a medical official told Agence France Presse.

"General Qoton was killed and four others were wounded in a suicide attack," near his home in the Mansoura neighborhood of Aden, the medic said.

Israel was still hunting for up to four gunmen who on Monday infiltrated the Egyptian border and staged a deadly ambush, killing one Israeli and sparking a firefight which left two militants dead.

The incident began around 6:00 am (0300 GMT) when a group of up to six gunmen opened fire towards a convoy of vehicles carrying Israeli construction workers to a site where they are building part of the vast border fence, the army said.

The campaign of Egyptian presidential candidate Ahmed Shafiq said on Monday it rejected a claim by the Muslim Brotherhood that its candidate Mohammed Mursi had won a historic presidential election.

"We reject it completely," Shafiq campaign official Mahmoud Barakeh told reporters of the Brotherhood's proclaimed victory.

The opposition Syrian National Council issued a cry for help Sunday to save Homs and other cities from attacks by President Bashar Assad's regime, and repeated its call for U.N. intervention.

"The country is under a violent attack, especially Homs," said Abdel Basset Sayda, the leader of the SNC, Syria's main opposition group.

Activists gathered at Cairo's iconic Tahrir Square warned Egypt's ruling military on Sunday they stand ready to reignite the revolution if the army clings to power.

"We're still here to carry the torch" of the revolution, warned Marwan Adel at the square which in February 2011 became the cradle of the uprising that ousted former president Hosni Mubarak.

Egypt's ruling military council is to stay in control of legislation and the budget in the absence of a parliament, even as the country prepares to announce a new president, military sources told Agence France Presse Sunday.

The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), which took power when president Hosni Mubarak was ousted in an uprising last year, is set to issue an amended constitutional declaration, consolidating its powers just hours before Egypt wraps up a divisive presidential election to pick Mubarak's successor.

Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip fired eight mortar shells at Israeli troops on the other side of the border fence on Sunday but no soldiers were injured, an Israeli army spokeswoman told Agence France Presse, after two Palestinians were injured by Israeli army fire.

She said that troops returned fire at militants in the central part of the enclave.

The two rockets, apparently fired from Sinai, which landed near towns in the deep south of Israel were linked to the Egyptian presidential election, a senior Israeli security source told AFP on Sunday.

"The rockets fired at Israel over the weekend were a one-off and carried out by those who wanted to influence the Egyptian presidential election," he said referring to militant groups in the Sinai.

Two Palestinians were shot dead by an Israeli truck driver after they tried to steal his vehicle in the south Hebron Hills on Sunday morning, Israeli police said.

Palestinian officials confirmed the two deaths but had no information about the circumstances of the shooting which took place at the Shani junction near Al-Samua, in the southernmost part of the West Bank.