Syria Direct: News Update 10-07-2013

* The Syrian regime will look into raising fees to bury the dead in the city of Damascus, Syrian official newspaper Tishreen reported on Monday. The report comes a day after the government’s decision to raise gas prices to 100 SYP after its previous level of 80 SYP, after multiple price hikes earlier this year.

* Pro-opposition Syrian News Network reports Monday the Free Syrian Army has rebuffed regime attempts to enter Moadimiyet e-Sham, despite continued shelling of the blockaded Damascus suburb where villagers are reported to be starving due to a regime encirclement of the town.  

* Eight people were killed and 27 injured when a mortar shell fell in the predominantly Christian neighborhood of Qissa’a in central Damascus Sunday, Syrian state agency SANA reported.

* The Syrian army tightened their control of the blockaded village of Matras in Tartus province after the FSA’s recent attempt to enter it, Hezbollah’s Al-Manar satellite station reported on Sunday. The Syrian National Coalition issued a statement Sunday warning of a possible regime massacre in the village, a town of 8,000 located a few kilometers from the Lebanese border. Matras is surrounded by regime-controlled towns.

* The Turkish army has begun to build a wall near the Syrian border to prevent illegal traffic and smuggling, the Turkish Dogan News Agency reported Sunday.  A two-meter high, patrolled wall with barbed wire is currently under construction at the border between the predominantly Kurdish Turkish city of Nisibeen and the northeastern Kurdish Syrian city of Qamishli.

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