Opponents of Syrian President Bashar Assad were meeting Saturday in Istanbul to launch a "national council" to coordinate the fight against the Damascus regime, organizers said.

Participants in two days of meetings in an Istanbul hotel, from both inside and outside Syria, planned to set up working groups and draft measures aimed at ousting Assad, who was targeted by new international sanctions on Friday.

Tanks rumbled into the central city of Homs at dawn Saturday, a day after security forces killed at least 33 anti-regime protesters across Syria, adding urgency to a U.N. mission expected this weekend.

"Several tanks took up positions at dawn in the district of Al-Khalidiyeh" in the central city of Homs, Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, told Agence France Presse.

Lebanon, the Arab member of the U.N. Security Council, on Friday blocked a statement which would have called deadly attacks in southern Israel terrorism, diplomats said.

The move brought criticism from the United States which said the terrorism label is a "standard" Security Council description after such an attack.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is expected to head to Beirut next week to meet with top Lebanese officials, As Safir newspaper reported on Friday.

“Abbas will visit Lebanon on Aug. 16 and 17,” Palestinian sources told the daily.

Saudi Arabia recalled its envoy to Syria in a major escalation of international pressure Monday after security forces killed more than 50 people and the regime defended its crackdown on "outlaws."

The shock move by Riyadh, the Middle East's Sunni Muslim heavyweight, followed condemnation by Pope Benedict XVI and the Arab League over the continuing bloodshed.

Lebanon’s disavowal of a U.N. Security Council statement condemning Syria's deadly attacks on civilians is “shameful,” high-ranking March 14 sources said.

The sources told An Nahar daily published Thursday that “despite the unanimity of the other 14 members of the Security Council on the statement, Lebanon’s disavowal is a shameful and disgraceful stance.”

The Palestinians will in September approach the U.N. Security Council to seek full membership in the global body, Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas said on Wednesday.

"We are going to the Security Council through a request to the secretary general of the United Nations to seek full membership in the U.N. and recognition of Palestine on the 1967 borders," he said.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and the Security Council strongly condemned the attack against a convoy of vehicles carrying members of the United Nations peacekeeping force near the southern city of Sidon in which five soldiers were wounded.

Ban “deeply disturbed” by the attack targeting the U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), according to a statement issued by his spokesperson Martin Nesirky.

Israel has issued a complaint to the United Nations over U.N. Special Coordinator of Lebanon Michael Williams’ recent report on the implementation of Security Council resolution 1701, reported the pan-Arab daily Al-Hayat on Sunday.

It deemed the report as being “lenient” with Hizbullah, while U.N. circles said that Israel was “upset with Williams for a number of reasons, most notably the fact that he failed to mention resolution 1559 at Hizbullah’s request.”

U.S. official Frederic Hof is making routine visits to Beirut to follow up the dispute between Lebanon and Israel on their maritime borders, Western diplomatic sources in Beirut said Friday.

The sources told As Safir daily that Hof is visiting Lebanon along with cartographers in an expression of Washington’s interest in solving the feud over oil and natural fields and setting the stage for possible U.S. investments in the sector in the future.