United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said he will ask for another six-month extension of the 33-year-old mandate for a U.N. observer force on the Golan Heights. The force includes about 1,000 members from Austria, Canada, India, Japan, Poland and Slovakia.

Israel has rejected changing the mandate of the force, despite the tension between Syria and Israel. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert reportedly has offered to withdraw from the area in return for peace with Damascus.