Syrian regime forces pounded the rebel-held town of Binesh near the Turkish border killing a woman and five children, and also rained shells on parts of Damascus on Saturday, a watchdog said.

Activists said the six people killed in Binesh were a woman and her five children, but the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights could not immediately confirm they were from the same family.

Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu formally notified President Shimon Peres on Saturday that after 40 days of tortuous negotiations with potential coalition partners he had formed a new government.

"As you know I was able to form a government," Peres's office quoted premier Netanyahu as saying at a meeting in Jerusalem. "You gave me the task and I carried it out."

The European Union's top diplomat, Catherine Ashton, urged caution Saturday on a proposal by Britain and France to arm the rebels fighting Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime.

"We have to work through, very carefully, the best understanding we can have of what would be the implications," she said, the day after the EU wrapped up a summit without reaching agreement on easing an arms embargo to allow weapons shipments to the rebels.

Several thousand people demonstrated on Saturday on the 40th day of mourning after the murder of opposition leader Chokri Belaid, a critic of the ruling Islamists whose death plunged Tunisia into turmoil.

People began gathering in the cemetery in southern Tunis where Belaid is buried. He was gunned down outside his home on February 6 in a killing blamed by the authorities on radical Islamists, denying any involvement.

Tripoli's embassy in Cairo said Saturday it was suspending work indefinitely, five days after demonstrators attacked the mission and burned the Libyan flag to protest the death of an Egyptian Copt in Libya.

A statement by the embassy said consular activity would be suspended but gave no reason for the decision which will affect Egyptians seeking to travel to neighboring Libya for work.

Syria's President Bashar Assad on Saturday called on the BRICS nations to intervene to end the conflict in his country, in a letter delivered by his adviser Bouthaina Shaaban during a trip to South Africa.

Speaking to Agence France Presse, Shaaban said she had delivered the letter to South African President Jacob Zuma ahead of the BRICS summit in South Africa on March 26.

Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi will visit Pakistan this week on a one-day state visit, Pakistan's Foreign Ministry said Saturday.

Morsi is due in the country Monday by invitation of President Asif Ali Zardari and will bring with him "a high-powered delegation", according to a ministry spokesman.

Syrian regime forces pounded parts of Damascus during the night, sending residents fleeing from the northern Barzeh district, as fighting also raged in the northern city of Aleppo, a watchdog said Saturday.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said regime shelling continued on Saturday and also affected the Palestinian Yarmuk refugee camp along with the Jubar, Barzeh and Qaboon neighborhoods of Damascus.

Syria's regime are expanding its use of cluster munitions in its conflict with rebel forces, causing "mounting civilian causalities," Human Rights Watch warned on Saturday.

"Syria is expanding its relentless use of cluster munitions, a banned weapon, and civilians are paying the price with their lives and limbs," Steve Goose, director of HRW's arms division, said in a statement.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is to inform President Shimon Peres later on Saturday that after 40 days of negotiations with coalition partners he has finally formed a new government.

Eleventh-hour agreements were signed on Friday with the centrist Yesh Atid and far-right Jewish Home parties, which held the key to building a government with a majority in the 120-seat parliament.