Khaled Meshal

Secretary of Defense James Mattis is on a Mideast tour to “continue efforts to strengthen regional security architectures.” While his meetings in Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Israel are likely to attract most of the press coverage, his discussions in Qatar Saturday could be the most consequential.

The main objective of Turkey's attempt to normalize ties with Israel is to provide more help to Palestinians, the Turkish prime minister has said, vowing the state will never take steps that would "sadden" the people of Palestine. 

Listening to Hamas’s political leader Khaled Meshal on Al-Jazeera the other day, I got the impression that he wants the Israeli operation on Gaza to continue.