APRNEWS - Israel on Monday said its air defences fired at rockets that approached its territory from neighbouring Syria, where regime troops are advancing on opposition forces close to the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

"Syrian rockets were identified as having been launched as part of the internal fighting in Syria," an Israeli army statement said in English.

APRNEWS - Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Moscow's military chief of staff will arrive in Israel later Monday for talks on the conflict in neighbouring Syria, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said.

REUTERS - Government helicopters dropped barrel bombs on the city of Deraa on Monday for the first time in nearly a year, a rebel and a war monitor said, extending an assault in southwest Syria.

AFP - A new group of Syrian rebels and civilians prepared to leave Eastern Ghouta on Monday after the largest exodus yet from the opposition enclave, as talks stalled over the final pocket of resistance.

AFP - Syrian regime air strikes and artillery fire hit the rebel-held enclave of Eastern Ghouta for a sixth straight day Friday as the world struggled to reach a deal to stop the carnage.

More than 400 civilians have been killed in one of the seven-year Syrian conflict's bloodiest episodes and rescuers were finding more bodies buried in the rubble.

AFP - Air strikes and artillery fire killed at least 15 civilians on Tuesday in a besieged rebel enclave near Damascus targeted by near-daily regime bombardment, a war monitor said.

Three children were among the dead in Eastern Ghouta, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which said the air raids were carried out by regime and Russian warplanes.

The deadliest strikes hit the Hammuriyeh district where eight civilians were killed, the Britain-based monitor said.