The United Nations will be forced to cut already reduced food rations to hundreds of thousands of Syrians unless a huge cash injection is found, a top humanitarian official warned Monday.

U.N. agencies have already cut the nutritional value of rations by a half over the past two months because of money shortages, U.N. humanitarian operations director John Ging said ahead of a donors conference in Kuwait on Wednesday.

Syria's main opposition alliance appealed Monday for cash and weapons from the international community as France warned that failing to deliver them would bolster Islamist militants in the fight against President Bashar Assad.

"With a state and a society collapsing, it is the Islamist groups that could gain ground if we do not do what we have to do," Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius told an international meeting at which a leader of the Syrian National Coalition (SNC) said the organization would need $500 million (370 million euros) to set up an alternative government.

Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblat renewed on Monday his call on Druze living in Syria to join the revolt against the regime of President Bashar Assad, deeming the recent formation of the “so-called popular army” as the first step towards civil war in the country.

He therefore warned the Druze community “against taking any reckless step such as joining the popular army.”

Syrian President Bashar Assad said his troops have gained the upper hand against rebels in the 22-month conflict and could win in "two weeks" should Turkey stop its support for insurgents, a Lebanese newspaper reported Monday.

"The army has a very large lead on the ground and has achieved significant gains," Assad told "visitors" at his palace in Damascus, al-Akhbar, a pro-regime Lebanese daily reported without identifying who the visitors were.

Israel is increasingly worried that Syrian chemical weapons could fall into the hands of Hizbullah or Islamist militants and is taking military and diplomatic steps to prevent it, local media and a security source said Monday.

The Maariv daily said that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had "urgently dispatched" his national security advisor to Moscow, where he will meet Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

Prime Minister Najib Miqati noted on Monday that he had not sensed any indication from any political power that they are not seeking to stage the parliamentary elections in June.

He said before a consular delegation: “Given the recent discussions, it appears that political powers are leaning towards adopting an electoral law based on proportional representation.”

U.S. President Barack Obama said in an interview published on Monday that he was wrestling with a decision on whether the U.S. should get involved to resolve the conflict in Syria.

"In a situation like Syria, I have to ask, can we make a difference in that situation?" he said in an interview with the New Republic magazine.

Ten rebels were killed in combat with government forces in Hasakeh, a majority-Kurdish city in northeast Syria, while fighting raged in a Damascus district on Monday, a watchdog said.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the fighting in Hasakeh occurred at the al-Ghazal roundabout late on Sunday, but gave no further details.

Syria's 22-month war, despite its dehumanizing effects, is teaching ordinary people to pull together and come up with innovative ways to survive without electricity or their daily bread.

"Buying bread or stepping out to collect water can be deadly," said Abu Hisham, a young resident of Aleppo, the strife-torn country's main northern city and one-time economic capital.

Hizbullah on Sunday stressed that the events in neighboring Syria will not be able to “twist the hand of the Resistance.”

“Everything happening around us is aimed at besieging the camp of resistance and the forces of defiance to prevent them from being effective in the face of invaders who are dreaming of stealing our fortunes and dominating our countries,” MP Mohammed Raad, head of Hizbullah's Loyalty to Resistance parliamentary bloc, said during a commemoration ceremony in the South.