DERAA, Syria - The main hospital in the southern Syrian city of Deraa has received the bodies of at least 37 protesters who were killed in a confrontation with security forces, a hospital official said on Thursday.

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Security forces opened fire on hundreds of youths at the northern entrance to Deraa on Wednesday afternoon, according to witnesses, in a dramatic escalation of nearly a week of protests in which at least 44 civilians have been killed since Friday.

Around 20,000 people marched on Thursday in the funerals for nine of those killed, chanting freedom slogans and denying official accounts that infiltrators and "armed gangs" are behind the killings and violence in Deraa.

As Syrian soldiers armed with AK-47s roamed the streets of the southern city, residents emptied shops of staples and basic goods and said they feared the government of President Bashar al-Assad was intent on crushing the revolt by force.

Assad, a close ally of Iran, key player in neighboring Lebanon and supporter of militant groups opposed to Israel, has dismissed rising demands for reform in Syria, a country of 20 million people run by the Baath Party since a 1963 coup.

A government statement said "outside parties" were spreading lies about the situation in Deraa, which is near the Jordanian border. It blamed "armed gangs" for the violence.

"If the rest of Syria does not erupt on Friday, we will be facing annihilation," said one resident, referring to Friday prayers, the only time citizens are allowed to gather en masse without government permission.

Assad, who is facing mounting criticism by the West for the killing in Deraa, "is not against any Syrian citizen", Syrian Vice-President Farouk al-Shara was quoted as saying this week.

The protesters in Deraa, a mainly Sunni city, have shouted slogans against the government's alliance with Shiite Iran, breaking a taboo on criticizing Syrian foreign policy.

But their slogans have also emphasized the unity of Syria, a country of myriad sects and ethnicities where Islamists have been allowed by the government to exercise more social influence on society in the last few years.

The army has so far taken a secondary role - mostly manning checkpoints - in confronting demonstrations. Secret police and special police units wearing all black have been more visible in Deraa since the protests erupted last Friday.

Witnesses said hundreds of soldiers patrolled Deraa's main streets as heavy rain fell, with scores manning intersections to prevent public gatherings. Travelers on a main highway near Deraa said they saw convoys of trucks carrying up to 2,000 soldiers heading to Deraa on Wednesday night.

In a separate attack in the early hours of Wednesday, security forces fired at protesters in the vicinity of the Omari mosque in Deraa's old quarter, residents said.

Two people killed in that attack, a man and a woman called Ibtissam Masalmeh, were buried in Deraa on Wednesday. Thousands marched in the funeral, chanting slogans against Iran and Lebanon's armed Shiite movement Hezbollah for the first time since protests broke out on Friday.

Reuters