Activists say at least 24 Syrian civilians have been killed as security forces fired on anti-government protesters as part of a nationwide crackdown.

Syria-based rights activist Mustafa Osso said most of the deaths occurred in Damascus suburbs during daytime protests last Friday and late night demonstrations following evening Ramadan prayers.

He said five civilians were killed in the besieged city of Hama and its surrounding countryside.

The toll was confirmed yesterday by the Local Co-ordination Committees, a key activist groups tracking the Syrian uprising.

The state TV has broadcast images of burned buildings and empty rubble-strewn streets in Hama, the epicentre of the protests, claiming the military was putting an end to the rebellion in the city.

Under the suffocating clampdown, residents of the city warned that medical supplies were running out and food was rotting after six days without electricity.

Last Friday the US State Department urged Americans to leave the country immediately.

Government forces began their ferocious assault on Hama last Sunday, cutting off electricity, phone services and internet and blocking supplies into the city of 800,000 as they shelled neighbourhoods and sent in tanks and ground raids.

It appeared to be an all-out attempt to take back the city - which has a history of dissent – after residents all but took it over since June, barricading it against the regime. Rights group say at least 100 people have been killed, while some estimates put the number as high as 250.

The tolls could not be verified because of the difficulty reaching residents and hospital officials in the city, where journalists are barred as they are throughout Syria.

Tanks shelled residential districts of Hama starting around 4 a.m. last Friday, just as people were beginning their daily fast for the Muslim holy month of Ramadan – mirroring a bombardment the evening before at sunset, when people were breaking the fast.

Syrian state media last Friday proclaimed army units were “working to restore security, stability and normal life to Hama”, which it said had been taken over by “terrorists”.