3.51pm BST

Here is a summary of today’s key events so far.

Syria

• Syrian activists reported heavy government shelling and air raids in Damascus and its suburbs, as well as shelling in rebel-held areas of Homs and Aleppo. Opposition group the Local Co-ordination Committees claimed the Free Syrian Army had downed a warplane in Idlib province, and said 65 people had been killed in fighting across the country today. These reports cannot be verified because most media are banned from Syria.

• A self-described member of Jabhat al-Nusra, one of the Islamist groups increasingly leading the rebellion against Bashar al-Assad, told the Guardian the Syrian army presence in Deir Ezzor, in the east of the country, was "diminishing".

• In an attempt to combat rising crime and kidnapping for ransom as a result of the civil war, Assad issued a decree today in which any person who abducts someone for political or sectarian reasons or for ransom will be sentenced to life in prison with hard labor, the state news agency said. It added that if the kidnapper kills, rapes or permanently disables the captive then the abductor will receive the death sentence.

• The US’s reluctance to arm the Syrian rebels or get involved in the conflict directly is partly due to America’s wish not to upset Iran at a critical time in nuclear negotiations, Javier Solana, the former EU foreign policy chief, has said.

• The continuing violence in Syria is stopping the UN’s World Food Programme from delivering food aid to those in need in the country, the humanitarian organisation has said.

• Over 6,000 people were killed in Syria in March, according to activists, making last month the bloodiest of the two-year-old conflict. Rami Abdul-Rahman of the British-based activist group the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said even this figure was likely to under-report the number of dead, since Bashar al-Assad’s government rarely announced true figures of regime forces killed. The Observatory gave figures of 1,486 rebels and army defectors and 1,464 Syrian army soldiers killed, along with 2,080 civilians, 298 of them children and 291 women. In addition, the group listed 387 unidentified civilians and 588 unidentified fighters. The upsurge in casualties is thought to be due to heavier shelling and the spread of hostilities to new parts of the country, such as the towns and army bases of the southern province of Daraa, even while clashes continue in Syria’s three largest cities, Damascus, Aleppo and Homs. The Observatory’s figures cannot be verified because most media are banned from Syria. In February, the UN said a total of 70,000 people had been killed so far in the conflict. This number is also thought likely to be an underestimate.

Israel

• A Palestinian prisoner has died of cancer after claims of medical negligence by the Israeli authorities, triggering unrest in the West Bank and among Palestinian inmates in Israeli jails. A three-day hunger strike by Palestinian security prisoners has been announced. Harriet Sherwood has the full story here.

Yemen

• Officials at Sanaa airport have told the Associated Press that former president Ali Abdullah Saleh has left the country for medical treatment in Saudi Arabia. Saleh has been under international pressure to leave the country, and has been accused of trying to block the work of a national dialogue conference, a key part of the country’s transfer of power, that opened two weeks ago. The constitution is expected to be rewritten and elections are expected next year. Ali al-Sarari, an aide to prime minister Mohammed Basindwa, said Saleh's presence had irritated southern separatists, Shi'ite Muslim Houthi rebels and young activists behind the uprising that helped end the veteran president's 33-year rule.

"Saleh's departure is a cause of relief and his presence [in Yemen] is a source of much worry because he was behind much of the actions that created tension," Sarari told Reuters. "His departure for medical treatment must be followed with an isolation from political life and a prevention from having any influence in political life."

• Yemen is facing new instability with thousands of its nationals working in Saudi Arabia being expelled after the kingdom issued new labour laws to tackle its own employment crisis.

Tunisia

• There will be no "Islamisation" of post-revolutionary Tunisia and the Islamist-led government has no hidden agendas or intention to monopolise power, the country's new prime minister has told my colleague Seumas Milne in Tunis.