The suffering of millions of Syrians caught up in their homeland's civil war is a "stain" on the world's conscience, European Commission head Jose Manuel Barroso said Monday.

"The pain and suffering of the Syrian people is beyond what we can tolerate. It is a stain on the world's conscience," Barroso told reporters after talks with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).

The heads of 21 political parties were to gather Monday to try to agree on a new prime minister to be named this week to form a cabinet of independents.

Following a months-long political crisis, the government led by the moderate Islamist movement Ennahda is to be replaced under a series of talks launched on Friday.

The European Commission on Monday said it would provide 85 million euros ($120 million) in humanitarian aid to help people caught up in Syria's civil war.

The funds are part of a 400-million-euro pledge following a UN appeal made in June, which has proved difficult to finance amid problems with a European Union budget over-run.

Israel arrested 10 West Bank-based members of the Islamist movement Hamas overnight, the army said Monday, although Palestinian officials put the number at 15.

"Ten Hamas operatives were detained overnight across the West Bank," an army spokeswoman told Agence France Presse, without giving any further details or reasons for the arrests.

U.N.-Arab League envoy Lakhdar Brahimi arrived in Damascus Monday on the next leg of a regional tour aimed at winning support for a peace conference on Syria, an Agence France Presse reporter said.

Brahimi, who traveled overland to the Syrian capital after flying in to Beirut airport from Tehran, arrived at the Sheraton hotel at about 1115 GMT (1315 GMT) accompanied by Syrian deputy foreign minister Faisal Moqdad.

A man was killed and his daughter wounded in southeastern Turkey by a mortar shell fired from across the border with war-torn Syria, health officials said.

The latest incident brought to 10 the number of casualties on the Turkish side of the border since last year as a result of the conflict raging in Syria.

Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir on Monday pledged to work with his South Sudanese counterpart to settle the future of the contested Abyei region, where residents were holding an unofficial referendum.

"I will continue with my brother Salva Kiir... to reach a solution for Abyei that can bring satisfaction to the local communities there," Bashir said in a speech opening a new session of parliament.

Russia on Monday described as "outrageous" a threat by powerful rebel groups in Syria against those who attend peace talks on the conflict backed by Moscow and Washington.

"It is outrageous that some of these extremist, terrorist organisations fighting government forces in Syria are starting to make threats," Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in televised comments.

Eight members of an armed group have been arrested in connection with the deaths of six Tunisian policemen in a clash last week, the interior ministry announced.

It said in a statement late Sunday that anti-terrorism units of the national guard arrested "eight terrorist elements implicated in the recent events" in the Sidi Bouzid region of central Tunisia.

Gunmen on Monday killed three policemen in Egypt, where attacks against security forces have been on the rise in the face of a bloody crackdown against Islamists, security officials said.

The assailants opened fire on the policemen who were posted near the University of Mansura in Egypt's Nile Delta region, before fleeing, one source said.