American and Hamas officials secretly met numerous times over the last six months, according to a report in the online news website BuzzFeed. The meetings were held between U.S. intermediaries and Hamas’ leadership, which lives outside the Gaza Strip in third-party countries ranging from Egypt to Qatar and Jordan. Topics...

State Department Deputy Spokesperson Marie Harf on Tuesday was pressed over a recent letter sent to Secretary of State John Kerry by Rep. Ed Royce (R-CA), in which the House Foreign Affairs Committee chairman expressed concerns over a long-reported $20 billion deal that would see Iran trade oil in exchange for...

Deepening concerns that Monday’s newly announced Palestinian unity government locks in a “Hezbollah model” for any future Palestinian state – a dynamic that has among other things proven terminal to Lebanese efforts to create robust political institutions – made their way into the day’s State Department briefing: QUESTION: The –...

In a rare public display of Jerusalem’s  displeasure with the State Department, Israeli Ambassador to Washington Ron Dermer took to the Facebook social-media website to offer his views on the American decision to maintain ties with the new Palestinian government. The government was formed jointly by Hamas and Fatah. The...

The Lebanese-Shiite Hezbollah may have set up a branch in the Gaza Strip, according to the Lebanese daily Al-Akhbar. The flag and logo of an organization that was launched a few days ago in the Gaza Strip suggest a Hezbollah now exists in Gaza. The organization is called al-Sabirin (the...

Just hours before the Palestinian Authority’s unity government was sworn in Monday, United States Secretary of State John Kerry spoke by phone with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to express Washington’s concern over the inclusion of the Hamas terror organization in the new Palestinian government, according to Israel Radio (Hebrew audio...