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Washington Connection

People examine documents at Sednaya Prison, where thousands of people were said to be detained and tortured by the Assad regime.

After Assad downfall, US family clings to hope as Syria prison search unfolds

The daughter of Majd Kamalmaz, an American citizen presumed dead in Syria, describes her anguish as she awaits answers on what happened to her father.

US President Joe Biden speaks about the situation in Syria in the Roosevelt Room at the White House in Washington, on Dec. 8, 2024.

US weighs how to engage as Syria’s rebel government emerges

As Syria’s post-war future takes shape, Washington is debating how to deal with the blacklisted Islamist organization that’s swept into power.

Motorists drive their vehicles past a billboard depicting Iranian missiles in Tehran on April 20, 2024, a day after Iran's state media reported explosions in the central province of Isfahan.

US mounts diplomatic blitz to contain Iranian attack

The Biden administration is urging Iran to temper its retaliation against Israel for the assassinations of Hezbollah and Hamas leaders.

US President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump gestures as he speaks during a rally in Doral, Florida, on July 9, 2024.

Republican platform a preview of Trump’s Middle East agenda

The platform calls for standing with Israel, deporting "pro-Hamas radicals" and making college campuses "patriotic" again.

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Trump calls Biden ‘bad Palestinian’ in Gaza debate jab

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Washington Connection

US sanctions 'shadow banking network' used by Iran's military

Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

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As US downplays cease-fire gap with Israel, Biden urges Qatar to secure Hamas approval

WASHINGTON, DC - MAY 31: U.S. President Joe Biden delivers remarks on former U.S. President Donald Trump’s guilty verdict in his hush-money trial before speaking on the Middle East at the White House on May 31, 2024 in Washington, DC. Biden said Trump had a fair trial and an impartial jury found him guilty on all 34 counts and added it is dangerous for anyone to say the trial was rigged. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Blinken hints at sanctions over ICC push for Israel arrest warrants

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken testifies before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Capitol Hill on May 21, 2024 in Washington, DC.

DELIL SOULEIMAN/AFP via Getty Images

US repatriates 11 Americans held in northeast Syria

Five years after the Islamic State lost its final stronghold in Syria, tens of thousands of women and children remain stranded in detention camps in the country's northeast.

Washington Connection

Israeli soldiers of the Jewish Ultra-Orthodox battalion "Netzah Yehuda" take part in their annual unit training in the Israeli annexed Golan Heights, near the Syrian border on May 19, 2014. The Netzah Yehuda Battalion is a battalion in the Kfir Brigade of the Israel military which was created to allow religious Israelis to serve in the army in an atmosphere respecting their religious convictions. AFP PHOTO/MENAHEM KAHANA (Photo credit should read MENAHEM KAHANA/AFP via Getty Images)

As pressure mounts, US delays plan to withhold aid from Israeli military unit

The State Department's plan to block a notoriously violent Israeli military unit from receiving US security assistance could help address what some say is a failure to hold Israel to the same standards as other US arms recipients.

US slams Smotrich’s ‘reckless’ reported effort to legalize West Bank outposts

US slams Smotrich's 'reckless' effort to legalize West Bank outposts

Israel's far-right finance minister is reportedly pushing to legalize 68 outposts during a time of rising settler violence against Palestinians in the West Bank.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken speaks to the press after meeting with the Armenian Prime Minister, European Union Foreign Policy chief and the EU Commission President, in Brussels on April 5, 2024.

Blinken hints at US move to restrict aid to Israeli military unit

The United States is expected to invoke a decades-old law to restrict military assistance to Netzah Yehuda, an Israeli military unit accused of gross human rights violations.

ATTA KENARE/AFP via Getty Images

Breaking | Last Updated: April 18, 2024, 12:12 pm

US hits Iran’s drone program with fresh sanctions after Israel attack

Washington has announced new Iran sanctions in response to last week’s attack on Israel, targeting 16 people and two entities linked to Iran’s drone production and testing.

The UN Security Council holds an emergency meeting on the risk of famine and attacks on humanitarian workers in Gaza, UN headquarters, New York, April 5, 2024.

US readies another veto as Palestinians seek elusive UN membership

The United States is poised for another UN Security Council showdown as the Palestinians seek full UN membership for the second time.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks during a joint press conference with the German Chancellor after their meeting in Jerusalem on March 17, 2024.

Republican House speaker courts Netanyahu amid partisan split on Gaza

If he accepts Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson’s planned invite to speak before Congress, chances are Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will find an even less receptive audience than listened to his 2015 address.

Sen. Chris Van Hollen, (D-MD) and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) participate in a press conference on Capitol Hill presenting the No War Against Iran Act on Thursday, Jan. 9, 2020 in Washington, DC.

Senators to Biden: Curtail arms to Israel unless Gaza aid expanded

A group of Democratic senators said Israel's restrictions on humanitarian aid entering the Gaza Strip could violate foreign assistance law.

US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield listens as Algerian Ambassador to the UN Amar Bendjama speaks.

US changes tune on Gaza ‘cease-fire’ as Rafah fears grow

Under pressure internationally and from Democratic voters, the Biden administration has begun to call for a "temporary cease-fire" in Gaza.

Egyptian Red Crescent members load on a truck humanitarian aid for war-torn Gaza brought by a French air force Airbus A400M cargo aircraft at El-Arish International Airport on November 20, 2023 as Israel has vowed to destroy Gaza's rulers Hamas after the Palestinian militant group carried out the deadliest attack in the country's history on October 7. About 1,200 people, most of them civilians, were killed in Israel during Hamas's October 7 attack and around 240 taken hostage, according to Israeli officials

How Israel’s 'convoluted' inspections are hindering Gaza aid

Humanitarian groups say Israel's time-consuming inspections process and denial of "dual-use" goods is hampering aid delivery in the Gaza Strip.

WASHINGTON, DC - NOVEMBER 27: Actress Cynthia Nixon speaks as she announces a hunger strike calling for a ceasefire in Gaza outside the White House on November 27, 2023 in Washington, DC. Nixon, who was joined by state legislators, community leaders and activist, demands that President Biden call for a permanent ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war and stops military aid to Israel. (Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

'Quietly complicit': second US official quits over Biden’s Gaza war handling

Tariq Habash, a Department of Education political appointee, said he could no longer represent an administration that “does not value all human life equally.”

Virginia, Arlington, aerial photograph of the eastern entrance of the Pentagon.

Key Pentagon policy officials to step down amid widening Middle East crisis

Mara Karlin, who oversaw the drafting of the Biden administration's national defense strategy and has filled in as the Pentagon’s no.-3 top official, and Dana Stroul, the department’s Middle East policy director, are both stepping down as Congressional dysfunction threatens to hold up their replacement.

Washington Connection