Hospital in Syria
Hospital in SyriaAFP photo

The Qatar-based Al Jazeera network quoted members of the Opposition in Syria Wednesday as saying that there has been another poison gas in attack on civilians in Damascus. About 20 people were hurt in the attack, they claimed.

The report has not been confirmed by other sources and Opposition claims in the two-year-old civil war have often turned out to be untrue or exaggerated. It was cited by IDF Radio.

There was also a report Wednesday of a loud explosion near President Bashar al-Assad's palace. Voice of Israel public radio said there were no reports yet of casualties.

U.S.-based Foreign Policy magazine reported on Tuesday about the intelligence information that apparently convinced the U.S. that the forces of Bashar al-Assad were indeed behind the chemical attack a week ago that killed hundreds of civilians.

"Last Wednesday, in the hours after a horrific chemical attack east of Damascus, an official at the Syrian Ministry of Defense exchanged panicked phone calls with the leader of a chemical weapons unit, demanding answers for a nerve agent strike that killed more than 1,000 people," Foreign Policy reported.

"Those conversations were overheard by US intelligence services," the magazine said. "That is the major reason why American officials now say they're certain that the attacks were the work of the Bashar al-Assad regime – and why the US military is likely to attack that regime in a matter of days."