Syrian security forces opened fire Friday killing 18 people as thousands of anti-regime protesters poured onto streets of flashpoint cities after the Ramadan weekly prayers, rights activists said.

Undaunted, protesters also took to the streets after the Tarawih evening prayers in several suburbs of the capital Damascus and in Homs, Deir Ezzor, Latakia, Hasakeh, Daraa and many other regions.

A dull-looking chart projected on the wall of a university office in Jerusalem displayed a revelation that would startle many readers of the Old Testament: the sacred text that people revered in the past was not the same one we study today.

An ancient version of one book has an extra phrase. Another appears to have been revised to retroactively insert a prophecy after the events happened.

U.S. President Barack Obama and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan agreed during a phone call Thursday on the need for a "transition to democracy" in Syria, the White House said.

Obama's office said he and Erdogan had also agreed on the need for an "immediate halt of all bloodshed and violence against the Syrian people" by forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad.

A clash erupted Thursday outside the Syrian embassy in Beirut’s Hamra district between protesters belonging to the Jamaa Islamiya and supporters of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, state-run National News Agency reported.

“A number of citizens had called for a rally outside the embassy’s building at 6:30 pm in solidarity with the Syrian people,” NNA added, noting that security forces immediately intervened to break up the brawl.

Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblat has stressed after returning from Damascus that he wasn’t worried about the fate of the Syrian regime.

In remarks to As Safir daily published Thursday, Jumblat said that he was relieved after his visit to the neighboring country. He added that the situation in Syria was improving.

Western nations stepped up demands for U.N. measures against President Bashar Assad after the Syrian leader ignored repeated calls for an end to the bloodshed in his country.

But U.N. Security Council battlelines were drawn when Russia's U.N. envoy said calls for sanctions did not help end the crackdown by Syrian security forces in which rights groups say more than 2,000 civilians have died.

The United States Wednesday again stopped short of explicitly calling for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to leave power, but said it would help his people achieve "dignity and freedom."

Washington further stiffened its stance, after a crackdown on protesters which has killed 2,000 people, by unveiling new sanctions on the state-owned Commercial Bank of Syria, the country's largest commercial bank.

Hizbullah said Wednesday that the March 14 general-secretariat “has ignored the statement issued by the U.N., which denied accusing” the party of being involved in Syria’s violence, noting that “this group did not settle for the fabrication of rumors and lies, but also tried to implicate the U.N. and its organizations in them.”

“Hizbullah does not usually comment on the statements issued by the March 14 general-secretariat because the content is repetitive, well-known and boring,” the party said in a communiqué.

Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblat held talks on Wednesday with Mohammed Nassif, the assistant to the Syrian Vice President, in Damascus, reported the PSP media department.

It said that the meeting was “marked by frankness and understanding and it was an occasion to exchange ideas over the latest political developments.”

U.N. Special Coordinator for Lebanon Michael Williams on Wednesday underlined “the importance of maintaining stability and also of protecting (U.N.) Security Council Resolution 1701.”

“We believe that this (UNSCR 1701) has brought stability to Lebanon in the years since 2006 and must be maintained in the face of the many challenges,” Williams added, following talks with Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea in Maarab.