Another general has fled Syria and joined rebels camped in southeastern Turkey with plans to confront the Damascus regime, the Anatolia news agency reported Saturday.

His identity was not disclosed for security reasons.

Residents of the border town of Arsal in eastern Lebanon demanded on Saturday the international agencies to assume their tasks and aid the Syrian refugees in the area.

They accused U.N. officials in a statement of "only providing help for 150 Syrian families out of some 600 families."

U.N. observers suspended their mission to Syria on Saturday, blaming intensifying violence as troops reportedly rained shells down on rebel strongholds, trapping more than 1,000 families in one city alone.

The unarmed observers have been targeted almost daily since deploying in mid-April to monitor a U.N.-backed but widely ignored ceasefire, and they were likened to "sitting ducks in a shooting gallery" by Susan Rice, the U.S. envoy to the United Nations.

More than 1,000 families were trapped on Saturday in several neighborhoods of the central city of Homs and under bombardment by regime forces, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

"More than 1,000 families, including women and children," are trapped in the Khalidiyeh, Jourat al-Shiah, Qarabees, old Homs and Qusour areas. "They have no food and no medical equipment," the watchdog's Rami Abdel Rahman told Agence France Presse.

Syrian troops shelled several rebel strongholds overnight and on Saturday, including Douma in northern Damascus and the central city of Homs, with a watchdog reporting at least 31 people killed nationwide.

Three women were among seven killed in the bombardment of the opposition bastion of Douma, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

U.N. Humanitarian Coordinator for Lebanon Robert Watkins warned on Saturday that Lebanese authorities won’t be able to keep the policy of keeping Lebanon at a distance from the Syrian crisis if the situation in the neighboring country worsens.

In an interview with An Nahar daily following a tour to the eastern Bekaa valley, Watkins said the policy has been so far successful. “But it could be difficult to preserve it if the situation deteriorates in Syria.”

Syrian opposition leaders met Saturday for a second day of talks with hopes of inking the founding principles of a future Syria, now tarnished by a 16-month long bloodshed and political chaos.

Major Syrian opposition groups gathered once more in Istanbul under the umbrella of the main opposition, the Syrian National Council (SNC), recognized by most factions as the official voice, and a "legitimate representative of Syrians" by Western and Arab powers.

Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblat advised both the March 8 coalition and the March 14 opposition to steer themselves clear of the Syrian crisis, saying local Lebanese parties won’t be able to change anything in the Syrian crisis.

In an interview with pan-Arab daily Asharq al-Awsat published Saturday, Jumblat said: “No matter what they thought, they won’t be able to change a thing in Syria.”

Free Patriotic Movement leader Michel Aoun has expressed fear that Lebanon would witness a new civil war if Syrian President Bashar Assad’s regime falls.

“The repercussions of what’s going on in Syria cannot take us to such a war,” Aoun told As Safir daily in an interview published on Saturday. Yet he warned that “the regime’s collapse could lead to a war.”

Hizbullah Secretary-General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said Thursday that the party’s missiles are now “capable of reaching vital targets inside Israel,” pointing out that the “Israelis themselves acknowledge Hizbullah’s missile power.”

In an interview with the Iranian television, Nasrallah added that the military capabilities of his group “cannot be compared to the previous phase,” describing Israel’s threats to attack Iran as “propaganda to blackmail the international community.”