Sporadic rocket and gunfire, meanwhile, broke a respite in Syrian government attacks on opposition-held districts of Homs city on Sunday.
Arab ministers met in Cairo to revive diplomatic efforts after the Arab initiative that called for President Bashar Assad to step aside was stalled by the double veto in New York. As part of the Arab efforts, Tunisia said it would host the first meeting on Feb. 24 of a "Friends of Syria" contact group made up of Arab and other states and backed by Western powers.
"How long will we stay as onlookers to what is happening to the brotherly Syrian people, and how much longer will we grant the Syrian regime one period after another so it can commit more massacres against its people?" Saudi Foreign Minister Saud Al-Faisal asked ministers at the start of the League session.
"At our meeting today I call for decisive measures, after the failure of the half-solutions," he said. "The Arab League should ... open all channels of communication with the Syrian opposition and give all forms of support to it."
Arab League chief Nabil Al-Arabi said he was proposing a new joint Arab-UN monitoring team to Syria, replacing an Arab mission beset by problems since it began work in December. The Sudanese general leading the Arab observers quit on Sunday. "I won't work one more time in the framework of the Arab League," Gen. Mohammed Al-Dabi, whose appointment had been criticized because of Sudan's own rights record, told Reuters.
"I performed my job with full integrity and transparency but I won't work here again as the situation is skewed," he added.
Ministers from Gulf Arab states, which have been leading the drive to isolate Assad and end his bloody 11-month crackdown on protests against his rule, met separately earlier. A source who attended the Gulf meeting said the ministers had discussed recognizing the opposition Syrian National Council and would propose that Arab states each take such a step. Gulf states announced last week that they were recalling their ambassadors from Syria and expelling Syria's envoys. Libya and Tunisia, both countries where popular revolts toppled authoritarian rulers last year, have done likewise.
The Gulf ministers also discussed "terminating the (Arab observer) mission in its existing form," the source said. Criticized by Syria's opposition for failing to halt violence, the 165-strong Arab mission suffered from internal dissent, as well as logistics and training problems. Al-Arabi told Reuters last week that any new mission to Syria would have to be bigger and better equipped, with a different mandate with international support. The idea of a joint Arab-UN mission has won only a tepid response from UN diplomats.
The Saudi minister criticized the Security Council's failure to back the Arab plan for Syria but did not name Russia and China. Al-Arabi said the veto, cause of much Arab frustration, exposed the failings of the Council's voting system.
"The Syrian people deserve freedom as much as their brothers in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and other Arab states that witnessed major political change," Tunisian Foreign Minister Rafik Ben Adessalam told ministers.
He announced that Tunisia would host the Feb. 24 meeting of "Friends of Syria," a plan proposed by France and the United States after Russia and China blocked the Security Council resolution.
Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim Al-Thani said the new forum would provide "a good opportunity to try to create a clear international direction to help the Syrian people to exit the crisis."
The Egyptian news agency said Al-Arabi had proposed appointing former Jordanian minister and UN envoy to Libya, Abdel Elah Al-Khatib, as the League's special envoy to Syria. The activist Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said four people were been killed in Baba Amro on Sunday morning and at least 34 rockets had rained down on the neighborhood. Earlier, traumatized residents had straggled from their homes after Syrian forces eased a weeklong bombardment that has killed hundreds and caused a humanitarian crisis.
A few families were allowed to leave mostly Sunni Muslim opposition districts where people had been trapped indoors for days by relentless artillery and sniper fire, residents said. In Homs, shelling had eased during Saturday night and Sunday morning before Assad's forces renewed their rocket barrages.
About 15 families were allowed to leave the battered Baba Amro and Inshaat neighborhoods, opposition campaigner Mohammad Al-Hassan told Reuters by telephone from Homs. Electricity and telephone lines were working in several districts of Homs after being cut off more than two weeks ago. YouTube footage showed several thousand people rallying in Deir Baalba district. Youths with their arms around each others' shoulders danced and waved the green and white flags of the republic overthrown by Assad's Baath Party in a 1963 coup. "God damn your soul, to hell with you Bashar. Our martyrs are going to heaven, Hafez and Bashar," they chanted, referring to the president — in power for 11 years — and his late father.
The opposition Local Coordination Committees cited doctors at makeshift hospitals as saying at least 31 people were killed in Homs on Saturday before the shelling eased off.
In Syria's northern town of Aleppo, mourners gathered for the funerals of 28 soldiers and civilians killed in bomb attacks on two military and security facilities on Friday.
No one has claimed responsibility for the bombing but the Assad government has blamed previous such attacks in Damascus on Al-Qaeda. It characterizes its opponents as foreign-backed "armed terrorists."
Speaking at the funerals, Ahmed Badr Al-Din Hassoun, mufti of Syria, appealed to the opposition to end its campaign.
"Enough. Enough. Enough. Why, brothers in the opposition, do you want to burn down your country? Why do you want to shed blood?" he said.
He also urged Assad to stamp out corruption, saying "this way it will not remain a pretext for those who want to destroy this nation."
In a rare show of compromise, government forces and rebels struck a truce in the town of Zabadani near the Lebanese border after a week of shelling by the military.
