Israel was on Thursday tightlipped over Syrian claims it had bombed a military site near Damascus, while stressing that any transfer of advanced weaponry to Hizbullah would cross a red line.

Israeli officials and the military refused to confirm or deny any involvement in the alleged attack and had no comment on separate reports from security sources that its warplanes had struck a weapons convoy along the Syria-Lebanon border.

President Michel Suleiman hoped on Thursday that the promises of the international community to help Lebanon meet the demands of Syrian refugees escaping the fighting in their country would be translated into deeds.

“We received signals that there is a certain support … But previous experiences haven't been very encouraging,” Suleiman told a delegation from the Association of Arab Newspaper Reporters in Lebanon.

Several Lebanese officials condemned on Thursday an Israeli air strike against a Syrian military research center, accusing the Jewish state of exploiting the current situation in the neighboring country to carry out its “flagrant aggression.”

“Israel is exploiting the developments in Syria to carry out its aggressive policies, indifferent to all the humanitarian and international treaties,” President Michel Suleiman said in a statement issued by his press office.

Russia said Thursday it was checking reports of an Israeli air strike against Syria but would condemn the "unprovoked" attack if the information proved true.

The foreign ministry said it was "deeply concerned" by Syrian claims its military research center had come under Israeli fighter jet attack and other reports of bombs being dropped on a convoy near the Lebanese border.

Hizbullah condemned on Thursday a reported Israeli attack on a Syrian military research center, saying it reveals the Jewish state's attempts to destroy Damascus.

The attack “fully unmasked what has been happening in Syria over the past two years and the criminal objectives of destroying this country and weakening its army, which discloses a bigger conspiracy against the Arab and Muslim countries,” a statement issued by Hizbullah said.

Umm Mohammed walks slowly among the 32 shrouded corpses lying on the floor of a school in Syria's Aleppo city, some of scores shot at point-blank range who were being buried on Wednesday.

She stops and kneels down to draw aside the sheet covering a face too damaged to recognize. One of the fighters pulls the sheet further away to reveal a tattoo on the dead man's right arm.

Syria's opposition chief Moaz al-Khatib said on Wednesday he is ready for dialogue with officials of President Bashar Assad's regime, subject to conditions including that detainees are released.

"I announce I am ready for direct discussions with representatives of the Syrian regime in Cairo, Tunis or Istanbul," Khatib said via his Facebook page, citing as another condition that passports for exiled citizens be renewed.

U.N. humanitarian aid chief Valerie Amos Wednesday denied that part of the aid money raised for war-hit Syrians goes to the regime, but agreed that several rebel-held areas were still out of reach.

"It's not true. We are working with a number of partners on the ground. There is no money going directly to the government," Amos told reporters on the sidelines of an international donors conference on Syria held in Kuwait City.

The Syrian army said that an Israeli air strike at dawn on Wednesday targeted a military research center in Jamraya, near Damascus, after several media reports said Israeli warplanes bombed a weapons convoy near the border with Lebanon.

Residents who spoke to Agence France Presse on condition of anonymity, however, said the strike targeted a non-conventional weapons research center some 15 kilometers (10 miles) northwest of the Syrian capital.

Prime Minister Najib Miqati on Wednesday held talks in Ankara with Turkey's President Abdullah Gul and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, requesting that Turkey pressure the abductors of the nine Lebanese Shiite pilgrims in Syria's Aazaz to secure their release.

After his meeting with Erdogan, Miqati expressed satisfaction with the talks, calling for "full cooperation between the two countries in all fields in a manner that would serve them both."