On the streets of Damascus, no one flinches when artillery shells explode just a few miles away. Residents who support neither the government nor the opposition say the situation is out of their control.
"Every day, we are hearing this boom, boom and everything else, but there is a life that is going on," said Rama Hamdi, seeking a bit of normalcy at a beauty salon. "I am worried sick about it, but there is nothing we can do."
Despite an abundance of people at an ancient bazaar, several storekeepers say business is down.
They said they are afraid to talk on camera, worried about what the government might say and what the rebels might do to them.
When asked about the shelling heard in the background, the storekeepers say they are afraid because they think the war is getting closer.
And they're right. Destruction from when government forces chased the rebel Free Syrian Army lies just a 10-minute drive away.
On many days, the reported death toll from around the capital is far higher than from areas surrounding other cities.
"Nowadays, I cannot go to the countryside without being worried someone will stop me," said Rauda Alaita, the salon owner. "Is it the real army or the other army stopping me? What answer I should answer them with (about) who I am? Now it's really difficult because you are stuck in the middle."
At a news conference under the banner of unity -- and in an array of anything but united -- opposition figures called for talks with the government.
There is an air of urgency here as speakers discuss how the situation is worse than it was a year ago. They say they need to be united and need to speak with a common voice. Even as these talks are going on, here you can hear a blast in the distance.
But members of the armed opposition, such as the Free Syrian Army, aren't present. They'd be arrested.
The opposition members gathered here are the ones the government tolerates. Some, like Mazen Bilal, know they are powerless.
"We are demanding from the regime for guarantees for the safety of this opposition to come in," Bilal said, "but we can't impose this on the regime."
In other developments:
Many Syrian children can't go to school
The school year officially starts this week in Syria, but the reality of war prevents thousands of children from learning.
More than 2,000 of the country's 22,000 schools have been damaged or destroyed, according to the Syrian Ministry of Education.
The education crisis extends beyond Syria's borders.
The Lebanese government was working to place an estimated 32,000 refugee children in public schools, the United Nations Children's Fund said.
At the Zaatari refugee camp in Jordan, UNICEF was registering school-age children while working to build a school that can accommodate up to 5,000 students, the agency said.
For some children inside Syria who can't go to school, UNICEF provided "recreational kits because these children had nothing to do."
U.N. Human Rights Council presents scathing report on Syria
Officials at the U.N. Human Rights Council meeting in Geneva discussed an independent, international commission's report on the grave situation in Syria on Monday.
"The commission found reasonable grounds to believe that government forces and the (Shabiha) had committed the crimes against humanity of murder and of torture, war crimes and gross violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law, including unlawful killing, torture, arbitrary arrest and detention, sexual violence, indiscriminate attack, pillaging and destruction of property," a summary of the report states. Shabiha are pro-government militia.
In addition, "The commission found reasonable grounds to believe that war crimes, including murder, extrajudicial execution and torture, had been perpetrated by organized anti-government armed groups."
Latest violence
At least 40 people were killed in violence across Syria on Monday, the opposition Local Coordination Committees of Syria said.
In Damascus and its suburbs, at least 18 people were killed, the LCC said.
CNN could not independently confirm those figures, which do not include deaths of government forces.
The state-run Syrian Arab News Agency reported Monday that operations "against terrorists" were continuing throughout the country.
Dozens were killed in clashes in Aleppo, the government news agency said Monday. Authorities also "inflicted heavy losses" in fighting with gunmen who tried to attack a security checkpoint in Homs, the news agency said.
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