Israel is keeping the option of military action against Iran open if the international community does not halt its suspected nuclear weapons drive, Foreign Minister Avidgor Lieberman said Friday.

"We are still waiting. We want to believe that the international community will be able to handle this threat... But again we keep all options on the table," Lieberman said when asked about the possibility of a strike on Iran.

Two French journalists evacuated from Syria's battered city Homs arrived Friday at a military airport near Paris after escaping the besieged protest hub where two of their colleagues were killed.

A plane transporting wounded reporter Edith Bouvier, 31, and photographer William Daniels, 34, flew in from Beirut, arriving at Villacoublay airport where they were met by relatives and French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

The U.N. rights body appealed to Syria on Friday to respect international law after receiving unconfirmed reports of 17 "grisly" executions as forces overran Baba Amr in the city of Homs.

"We are alarmed at reports starting to come out of the Babr Amr district of Homs after it was taken over by Syrian forces yesterday," said Rupert Colville, spokesman for the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin stopped short of backing Bashar Assad in the Syrian crisis, saying Russia had no special relationship with his regime and refusing to predict that the president would stay in power.

With pressure mounting on Moscow to harden its line against Assad, Putin called on both the Damascus regime and opposition rebels to agree a ceasefire but also criticized the West for backing the rebels in the conflict.

Syrian security forces on Friday killed 75 people across the country and opened fire to disperse demonstrations in the cities of Aleppo and Damascus as thousands took to the streets, activists and monitors said.

The Local Coordination Committees, the main activist group spurring protests on the ground, said among the victims were several children, two women and 14 summarily executed in the flashpoint Homs neighborhood of Baba Amr.

Britain's Prime Minister David Cameron called Friday for the "criminal" Syrian regime to be held to account.

"One day, no matter how long it takes, there will be a day of reckoning for this dreadful regime," Cameron said as he joined European Union leaders on the second day of a two-day summit.

Syrian authorities have found the bodies of U.S. journalist Marie Colvin and French photographer Remi Ochlik in the Baba Amr district of powder keg Homs Thursday after rebels retreated, the foreign ministry said.

"Authorities this morning located the bodies of the two journalists, American Marie Colvin and Frenchman Remi Ochlik, in a great humanitarian effort," a source at the ministry said quoted by SANA news agency. The two had been "buried in the region which was controlled by armed terrorist groups".

Al-Qaida combatants are fighting alongside armed Syrian opposition militants, Russian foreign ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich was quoted Thursday as saying by the Itar-Tass news agency.

"It is not a secret that our proposals are being rejected by the West or blocked by Syria's radical opposition, not to mention armed units fighting against governmental forces that include al-Qaida fighters and other extremists," he said.

Russia on Thursday confirmed it had agreed to discuss its approach to the Syria crisis with critical Gulf foreign ministers, but denied that a firm date had been set for next week.

"We have received the agreement in principle from member states of the Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf to organize such a meeting," foreign ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich told ITAR-TASS.

The U.N. Security Council on Thursday called on Syria to allow "immediate" humanitarian access to protest cities in a unanimously agreed statement.

Russia and China significantly signed up to the statement which was approved after Syria refused to let U.N. humanitarian chief Valerie Amos into the country. Syria has said the date proposed by Amos was not suitable.