5.05pm GMT

Israel/Palestinian territories

• Britain has summoned the Israeli ambassador in London to express its concern over the Israeli government's decision to build 3,000 new housing units and unfreeze development in the E1 block. The UK said the move "threatens the viability of the two-state solution".

• The French, Swedish, Danish and Spanish governments joined the UK in calling in the Israeli ambassador in their respective countries. Russia said it was "alarmed" by the Israeli announcement, while Germany urged Israel to desist.

• Britain and France denied reports that they were planning on recalling their ambassadors from Israel. A spokesman for David Cameron said:

We are not proposing to do that. We are not proposing to do anything further at this stage ...Clearly, we are concerned about the situation ...but we are not setting out any further action at this stage.

• Israel said it would not backtrack on its settlement expansion plan despite international condemnation. An official in prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu's office said :

Israel will continue to stand by its vital interests, even in the face of international pressure, and there will be no change in the decision that was made.

Syria

• Syrian foreign ministry spokesman Jihad Makdissi has defected from President Bashar al-Assad's government and left the country, a regional diplomatic source said on Monday. "All I can say is that he is out of Syria," the source, who did not want to be named, told Reuters. Lebanon's al-Manar Television said earlier that Makdissi had been sacked for making statements which did not reflect official positions.

• Syrian government forces bombed rebel positions in the frontier town of Ras al-Ain on Monday, killing at least 12 people according to opposition activists, and prompting Turkey to scramble fighter jets along the border. The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said six of those killed by the air raids on the town's Mahatta neighbourhood were rebel fighters and that 30 people were wounded. AP reported a lower death toll of one killed and 20 wounded. It follows clashes on the Syria-Lebanon border over the weekend.

• US and allied intelligence have detected Syrian movement of chemical weapons components in recent days, a senior US defence official said, as the Obama administration again warned the Assad regime against using them. The US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, in Prague for meetings with Czech officials, reiterated President Barack Obama's declaration that Syrian action on chemical weapons was a "red line" for the United States that would prompt action. Syria's ministry of affairs said it "would not use chemical weapons if there are any against its own people under any circumstances".

• Officials at Cairo's international airport said a commercial jet on its way to the Syrian capital turned back because of violence near Damascus airport. The officials said the Egypt Air flight from Cairo was rerouted about 30 minutes after takeoff when Egyptian officials received word from their counterparts in Damascus that the area near the airport was not safe.

Egypt

• Egypt's Supreme Judicial Council has agreed to supervise a referendum on a draft constitution, a legal adviser to President Mohamed Morsi said, although some judges have called for a boycott. The judiciary oversees voting in Egypt by law. The influential but unofficial Judges Club urged colleagues yesterday to shun the referendum which Morsi hopes will douse anger over a decree he issued on 22 November, greatly expanding his powers and temporarily putting himself above the law.

• Egyptian media and the tourism industry are considering joining protests by judges against Morsi. Newspapers plan to suspend publication on Tuesday while privately owned TV networks will go dark all day. The full front pages of Egypt's most prominent newspapers on Monday said: "No to dictatorship" on a black background with a picture of a man wrapped in newspaper and with his feet cuffed. Hotels and restaurants are considering switching off their lights for half an hour on Tuesday to protest against Morsi, according to the Supporting Tourism Coalition an independent body representing tourism industry employees.