Middle East

Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi has reportedly acknowledged that her office released a video of troops abusing a Palestinian detainee.

Israeli police have arrested a former military prosecutor after she leaked a video appearing to show soldiers abusing a Palestinian detainee.

Major General Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi was detained overnight on Monday, according to the country’s national security minister, following a scandal that erupted after she leaked a video, resigned and then disappeared.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has called the leaking of the video perhaps the most “severe public relations attack” on Israel since its founding.

Tomer-Yerushalmi disappeared for several hours on Sunday after she announced her resignation, sparking speculation of a possible suicide attempt.

According to a copy of her resignation letter published by Israeli media on Friday, Tomer-Yerushalmi acknowledged that her office had released the video to the media last year. Five reservists were later charged with mistreating prisoners.

National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir said on Monday on Telegram: “It was agreed that in light of last night’s events, the prison service would act with extra vigilance to ensure the detainee’s safety in the detention centre where she has been placed in custody.”

The statement did not indicate what charges she faced.

According to Israeli media, a Tel Aviv court ordered Tomer-Yerushalmi’s remand in custody until noon on Wednesday.

Public broadcaster Kan reported that she was suspected of “fraud and breach of trust, abuse of office, obstruction of justice and disclosure of information by a public servant”.

Former chief military prosecutor Colonel Matan Solomesh was also arrested overnight in connection with the case and was appearing in court Monday, reported Israeli Army Radio.

‘Severe violence’

On Friday, the Israeli military announced that Tomer-Yerushalmi had resigned from her post pending an investigation into leaked footage taken at the Sde Teiman military base in southern Israel last year.

The case began in August 2024 when Israel’s Channel 12 broadcast footage from Sde Teiman, which has been used to hold Palestinians taken during the war in Gaza.

The surveillance camera footage indicated that soldiers had committed illicit acts, without explicitly showing it, as it appeared to take place behind troops holding up shields.

The video was picked up by several media outlets, triggering international outrage and protests within Israel.

The Israeli military said in February that it had filed charges against five reservist soldiers connected with mistreatment at Sde Teiman.

They were charged with “acting against the detainee with severe violence, including stabbing the detainee’s bottom with a sharp object, which had penetrated near the detainee’s rectum”.

It added “the acts of violence have caused severe physical injury to the detainee, including cracked ribs, a punctured lung and an inner rectal tear”.

The indictment said that the abuse took place on July 5, 2024 during a search of the detainee.

Speaking after a cabinet meeting on Sunday, Netanyahu blasted the leak of the video, labelling it as perhaps the most “severe public relations attack” on Israel in the country’s history.

Tehran, Iran – Iran is “not in a hurry” to resume talks with the United States over its nuclear programme, Tehran’s foreign minister has told Al Jazeera.

Iran remains prepared to engage in indirect negotiations with Washington if the US chooses to talk “from an equal position based on mutual interest”, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told Al Jazeera Arabic in an interview at his office in Tehran that was broadcast on Sunday.

The official also asserted that a critical “shared understanding” regarding Israel is developing across the region.

Tehran’s top diplomat said conditions set by the US for talks to resume – which reportedly include an emphasis on direct negotiations, zero uranium enrichment, and limits on Iran’s missile stocks and its support for regional allies – are “illogical and unfair”.

That makes talks untenable, he suggested.

“It appears they are not in a hurry,” he remarked. “We are not in a hurry, either.”

Araghchi’s insistence comes despite the pressure from reimposed United Nations sanctions and other challenges facing the Iranian establishment.

Rather, the foreign minister said he believes regional dynamics are turning against Israel, the US’s closest ally in the Middle East.

“I sometimes tell my friends that Mr Netanyahu is a war criminal who has committed every atrocity, but did something positive in proving to the entire region that Israel is the main enemy, not Iran, and not any other country,” Araghchi said in reference to the Israeli prime minister.

The comments came two days after Oman’s chief diplomat, for the first time, publicly joined the chorus of disapproval aimed at Netanyahu and his hardline government.

“We have long known that Israel, not Iran, is the primary source of insecurity in the region,” Foreign Minister Badr bin Hamad al-Busaidi told the audience at the IISS Manama Dialogue 2025 regional forum.

He said over the years, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) has “at best sat back and permitted the isolation of Iran”, a stance that he believes “needs to change”.

In the past 48 hours, the heinous lie that the unlawful Israeli and U.S. bombing of Iran was motivated by an imminent nuclear threat has been thoroughly debunked by

– The International Atomic Energy Agency Chief, who has explicitly stated that Iran “is not and was not”… pic.twitter.com/C2uBzBLOHD

— Seyed Abbas Araghchi (@araghchi) November 2, 2025

Oman has for years acted as a mediator between Iran and the US in nuclear, financial, prisoner exchange and other regional issues.

Tehran and Washington were slated to sit down for a sixth round of talks in mid-June, when Israel attacked Iran’s nuclear facilities. That launched a 12-day war that killed more than 1,000 people in Iran and inflicted billions of dollars in infrastructure damage.

After media reports last week said the administration of US President Donald Trump had sent a new message to Tehran via Oman, Iran’s government spokeswoman Fatemeh Mohajerani confirmed that messages had been received.

But she did not elaborate on the content or Iran’s potential response. The White House has not publicly confirmed sending the missive.

During his interview, Araghchi said “almost all” of the about 400kg (880lb) of 60-percent enriched uranium possessed by Iran is “buried under the rubble” of nuclear facilities bombed by the US and Israel.

“We have no intention of removing them from under the rubble until conditions are ready. We have no information on how much of the 400kg is untouched and how much is destroyed, and we will have no information until we dig them out,” he said.

The Iranian foreign minister pointed out that China and Russia have formally announced they do not recognise the UN sanctions recently reimposed against Iran by the European signatories to its 2015 nuclear deal with world powers.

France, the United Kingdom and Germany have signalled they want to restart talks with Tehran. However, no substantial progress has been made.

In the meantime, they have imposed sanctions and restrictions, both in relation to Iran’s alleged drone exports to Russia and its nuclear programme.

The three European powers in September announced they were suspending their bilateral air services agreements with Iran, affecting Iranian carriers like Iran Air.

Some of the flights appear to be gradually coming back, though, with Iranian state television airing footage of an Austrian Airlines flight landing in Tehran’s Imam Khomeini International Airport on Sunday night.

Germany’s Lufthansa is also scheduled to resume flights to Tehran, but the precise restart date has not been publicly announced.

A senior Sudanese diplomat has accused the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) of committing war crimes in the country’s North Darfur state, as survivors who escaped the city of el-Fasher recounted mass killings and sexual assault by the paramilitary troops.

Sudan’s ambassador to Egypt, Imadeldin Mustafa Adawi, made the allegations on Sunday as he accused the United Arab Emirates (UAE) of helping the RSF paramilitary group in the ongoing civil war.

The Gulf state denies the claim.

Adawi’s remarks followed an earlier statement by Sudanese Prime Minister Kamil Idris, who told the Swiss newspaper Blick that the RSF should be tried in the international courts.

But Kamil rejected the “illegal” idea of foreign troops being deployed to his country, which has been ravaged by a civil war between the RSF and the Sudanese army since April 2023.

The calls for action come a week after the RSF seized the capital of North Darfur, el-Fasher, after an 18-month siege and starvation campaign, resulting in thousands of reported civilian deaths. The city was the Sudanese army’s last stronghold in the region.

In the days since its capture, survivors have reported mass executions, pillaging, rape and other atrocities, sparking an international outcry.

The Sudanese government said that at least 2,000 people were killed, but witnesses said the real number could be much higher.

Tens of thousands of civilians are still believed to be trapped in the city.

“The government of Sudan is calling on the international community to act immediately and effectively rather than just make statements of condemnation,” Adawi told reporters during a news conference in the Egyptian capital, Cairo.

The envoy urged the world to designate the RSF as a “terrorist” organisation, as well as condemn RSF “for committing massacres amounting to genocide” and denounce “its official regional financier and supporter, the United Arab Emirates”.

He also said that Sudan would not take part in talks led by Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United States and the UAE to end the conflict if the latter remains part of the negotiations.

“We do not consider them [the UAE] as a mediator and someone reliable on the issue,” Adawi stressed.

Mass killings, sexual assault

The UAE, however, denies allegations that it is supplying the RSF with weapons.

At a forum in Bahrain’s capital, Manama, an Emirati presidential adviser said that the Gulf state wants to help end the war, and acknowledged that regional and international powers could have done more to prevent the conflict in Sudan.

“We all made the mistake, when the two generals who are fighting the civil war today overthrow the civilian government. That was, in my opinion, looking back, a critical mistake,” Anwar Gargash said.

Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and the US, as mediators, have all condemned the mass killings and called for increased humanitarian assistance.

As the world’s worst humanitarian crisis further spirals into chaos, residents who managed to escape el-Fasher recalled their harrowing experience.

Adam Yahya, who fled with four of his children, told Al Jazeera that his wife was killed in an RSF drone strike shortly before el-Fasher fell. He said that he and his children barely had time to mourn before they found themselves on the run from the paramilitary group.

“The streets were full of dead people. We made it to one of the sand barriers set up by the RSF. They were shooting at people, men, women and children, with machineguns. I heard one saying, ‘Kill them all, leave no one alive’,” Yahya recounted.

“We ran back and hid. At night, I slowly crept out with my children and crossed the barrier. We walked to a village, where someone took pity on us and gave us a ride to the camp here.”

Another 45-year-old woman in the displacement camp of Al Dabbah in Sudan’s Northern State told Al Jazeera that RSF fighters sexually assaulted her.

The woman, who only gave her first name, Rasha, said she left her daughters at home when the RSF seized the army headquarters on Sunday and went to look for her sons.

“The RSF asked me where I was going, and I told them I’m looking for my sons. They forced me into a house and started sexually assaulting me. I told them I’m old enough to be their mother. I cried,” she said.

“They then let me go, and I took my daughters and fled, leaving my sons behind. I don’t know where they are now,” she said.

“We just fled and ran past dead bodies till we crossed the barrier and reached a small village outside el-Fasher,” she added.

Aid agencies, meanwhile, said that thousands of people are unaccounted for after fleeing el-Fasher.

Caroline Bouvard, the Sudan country director for Solidarites International, said that only a few hundred more people have turned up in Tawila, the closest town to el-Fasher, in the past few days.

“Those are very small numbers considering the number of people who were stuck in el-Fasher. We keep hearing feedback that people are stuck on the roads and in different villages that are unfortunately still inaccessible due to security reasons,” she said.

Bouvard said there is a “complete blackout” in terms of information coming out of el-Fasher after the RSF takeover, and that aid agencies are getting their information from surrounding areas, where up to 15,000 people are believed to be stuck.

“There’s a strong request for advocacy with the different parties to ensure that humanitarian aid can reach these people or that, at least, we can send in trucks to bring them back to Tawila,” she added.

A historic drought in the country has culminated in a ‘100 percent drop in precipitation’ in the Tehran region.

The main source of drinking water for residents of the Iranian capital Tehran is at risk of running dry within two weeks, according to state media, due to a historic drought plaguing the country.

The Amir Kabir Dam, one of five that provide drinking water for Tehran, “holds just 14 million cubic metres of water, which is eight percent of its capacity”, the director of the capital’s water company, Behzad Parsa, was quoted as saying by the IRNA news agency on Sunday.

At that level, it can only continue to supply Tehran with water “for two weeks”, he warned.

The announcement comes as the country experiences its worst drought in decades. The level of rainfall in Tehran province was “nearly without precedent for a century”, a local official declared last month.

The megacity of more than 10 million people is nestled against the southern slopes of the often snow-capped Alborz Mountains, which soar as high as 5,600 metres (18,370 feet) and whose rivers feed multiple reservoirs.

A year ago, the Amir Kabir dam held back 86 million cubic metres of water, Parsa said, but there had been a “100 percent drop in precipitation” in the Tehran region.

Parsa did not provide details on the status of the other reservoirs in the system.

According to Iranian media, the population of Tehran consumes around three million cubic metres of water each day.

As a water-saving measure, supplies have reportedly been cut off to several neighbourhoods in recent days, while outages were frequent this summer.

In July and August, two public holidays were declared to save water and energy, with power cuts an almost daily occurrence amid a heatwave that saw temperatures rise beyond 40 Celsius (104 Fahrenheit) in Tehran and exceed 50C (122F) in some areas.

“The water crisis is more serious than what is being discussed today,” Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian warned at the time.

Water scarcity is a major issue throughout Iran, particularly in arid provinces in the country’s south, with shortages blamed on mismanagement and overexploitation of underground resources, as well as the growing impact of climate change.

Iran’s neighbour Iraq is experiencing its driest year on record since 1993, as the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, which flow into the Persian Gulf from West Asia, have seen their levels drop by up to 27 percent due to poor rainfall and upstream water restrictions, leading to a severe humanitarian crisis in the country’s south.

Hamas says US claim is ‘unfounded’, calling it ‘an attempt to justify further reduction of already limited’ aid in Gaza.

Hamas has denied accusations by the US Central Command (CENTCOM) that the Palestinian group looted aid trucks in the Gaza Strip.

CENTCOM had published drone footage that allegedly showed an aid truck being looted in the enclave. It said in a statement that the drone observed suspected Hamas operatives looting the truck that was travelling as part of a humanitarian convoy in northern Khan Younis on October 31.

On Sunday, Hamas called the United States’ accusations “unfounded” and “part of an attempt to justify the further reduction of already limited humanitarian aid, while covering up the international community’s failure to end the blockade and starvation imposed on civilians in Gaza”.

“All manifestations of chaos and looting ended immediately after the withdrawal of the [Israeli] occupying forces, proving that the occupation was the only party that sponsored these gangs and orchestrated the chaos,” it added.

Hamas said more than 1,000 Palestinian police and security forces had lost their lives and hundreds were wounded while trying to provide protection for humanitarian aid convoys and ensure that assistance reaches those in need.

It affirmed that none of the international or local institutions, nor any driver working with the aid convoys, has filed any report or complaint about looting by Hamas.

“This clearly demonstrates that the scene cited by the US Central Command is fabricated and politically motivated to justify blockade policies and the reduction of humanitarian aid,” it said, blaming the US for failing to document the ongoing Israeli attacks following the ceasefire agreement that killed 254 Palestinians and wounded 595.

CENTCOM said that the MQ-9 aerial drone was flying overhead to monitor the implementation of the ceasefire between Hamas and Israel.

“Over the past week, international partners have delivered more than 600 trucks of commercial goods and aid into Gaza daily. This incident undermines these efforts,” it said in the statement.

Hamas said the average number of aid trucks entering Gaza daily does not exceed 135, while the rest are commercial trucks bearing goods that Gaza’s population cannot afford “despite our repeated calls to increase the number of humanitarian aid trucks and reduce commercial shipments”.

“The US adoption of the Israeli narrative only deepens Washington’s immoral bias and places it squarely as a partner in the blockade and the suffering of the Palestinian people,” it said.

The ceasefire took effect on October 10 under US President Donald Trump’s 20-point plan.

Phase one of the deal includes the release of the captives in exchange for nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners. The plan also envisages the rebuilding of Gaza and the establishment of a new governing mechanism without Hamas.

Since October 2023, Israel’s war on Gaza has killed more than 68,500 people and wounded over 170,600 across Gaza.

This major investigative documentary examines the facts surrounding the murder of Palestinian American Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, as she was reporting in Jenin, in the occupied West Bank, in May 2022.

It sets out to discover who killed her – and after months of painstaking research, succeeds in identifying the Israeli sniper who pulled the trigger.

It gets through the smokescreens of both the Israeli and US governments and reveals how the close political relationship between them frustrated efforts to obtain justice at the time.

Through interviews with an Israeli former national security adviser, a former deputy assistant US secretary of state for Israeli-Palestinian affairs, Israeli soldiers and Shireen’s colleagues and family, the film challenges official versions of events – and, in doing so, highlights issues of accountability, press freedom and the geopolitical dynamics surrounding the case, particularly in the light of the Israeli killing of Anas al-Sharif and four of his Al Jazeera colleagues in Gaza in August 2025.

Many people remain unaccounted for while camps and towns surrounding el-Fasher are overwhelmed too.

Millions of people across war-ravaged Sudan, particularly its western parts, remain in dire need of humanitarian aid as key generals show no intention of ending the civil war amid ongoing violence and killings in North Darfur’s el-Fasher.

International aid agencies called on Sunday on the Sudanese armed forces (SAF) and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) to facilitate increased entry of aid while a roadmap by mediators has failed to produce a ceasefire so far.

A week after the paramilitary force seized el-Fasher, the state capital of North Darfur, after an 18-month siege and starvation campaign, the situation remains catastrophic.

Tens of thousands of civilians are still believed to be trapped in the final major city in the western region of Darfur to fall to the RSF while thousands more are unaccounted for after fleeing el-Fasher.

Only a fraction of those who fled on foot from el-Fasher have made it to Tawila, a town roughly 50km (30 miles) away.

Speaking to Al Jazeera from Tawila, an official with a France-based aid agency said only a few hundred more people have turned up in the town over the past few days.

“Those are very small numbers considering the number of people who were stuck in el-Fasher. We keep hearing feedback that people are stuck on the roads and in different villages that are unfortunately still inaccessible due to security reasons,” said Caroline Bouvard, Sudan country director for Solidarites International.

Bouvard said there is a “complete blackout” in terms of information coming out of el-Fasher after the RSF takeover and aid agencies are getting their information from surrounding areas where up to 15,000 people are believed to be stuck.

“There’s a strong request for advocacy with the different parties to ensure that humanitarian aid can reach these people or that at least we can send in trucks to bring them back to Tawila.”

Many of the people who have managed to survive numerous RSF checkpoints and patrols to reach Tawila have reported seeing mass executions, torture, beatings and sexual violence. Some were abducted by armed men and forced to pay a ransom on pain of death.

Many more have been forcibly displaced to the al-Dabbah refugee camp in Sudan’s Northern State. Some have been there for weeks.

Reporting from the camp, Al Jazeera’s Hiba Morgan said over the past few days, more displaced people have poured in from el-Fasher, exacerbating the humanitarian situation.

People are in need of food, clean water, medication and shelter as many are sleeping out in the open. Thousands more could turn to the camp as well as other surrounding areas over the coming days as people flee the slaughter by RSF fighters.

The United States, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Egypt, as mediators, have all condemned the mass killings and called for increased humanitarian assistance.

“The RSF must stop engaging in retribution and ethnic violence; the tragedy in El Geneina must not be repeated,” the US Department of State said in a statement on Saturday in reference to the massacre of Masalit people in West Darfur’s capital.

“There isn’t a viable military solution, and external military support only prolongs the conflict. The United States urges both parties to pursue a negotiated path to end the suffering of the Sudanese people,” it said in a post on X.

US lawmakers have also called for action from Washington in the aftermath of the el-Fasher takeover by the RSF.

Republican Senator Jim Risch of Idaho, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, on Friday called for the US to officially designate the RSF as a “foreign terrorist organisation”.

Thousands of Moroccans filled the streets of Rabat singing and waving flags after the UN Security Council adopted a resolution describing autonomy for Western Sahara under Moroccan sovereignty as the most feasible solution to the decades-long territorial dispute. The US-drafted text provides international endorsement of Morocco in its dispute with the Algeria-backed Polisario Front.

Tens of thousands of people in Sudan have fled el-Fasher and the advance of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces in the Darfur region. Al Jazeera’s Hiba Morgan reports from a camp for displaced civilians in the neighbouring Northern State where people are in desperate need of assistance.

Gaza residents say they fear a return to Israel’s full-scale bombing as they struggle to find food, water and medicine.

Gaza Government Media Office says just 24 percent of agreed aid allowed into Gaza since ceasefire deal came into force.

Authorities in Gaza say that Israel has only allowed a fraction of the humanitarian aid deliveries agreed on as part of the United States-brokered ceasefire into the enclave since the agreement came into effect last month.

In a statement on Saturday, Gaza’s Government Media Office said that 3,203 commercial and aid trucks brought supplies into Gaza between October 10 and 31.

This is an average of 145 aid trucks per day, or just 24 percent of the 600 trucks that are meant to be entering Gaza daily as part of the deal, it added.

“We strongly condemn the Israeli occupation’s obstruction of aid and commercial trucks and hold it fully responsible for the worsening and deteriorating humanitarian situation faced by more than 2.4 million people in the Gaza Strip,” the office said in a statement.

It also called on US President Donald Trump and other ceasefire deal mediators to put pressure on Israel to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza “without restrictions and conditions”.

While aid deliveries have increased since the truce came into force, Palestinians across Gaza continue to face shortages of food, water, medicine and other critical supplies as a result of Israeli restrictions.

Many families also lack adequate shelter as their homes and neighbourhoods have been completely destroyed in Israel’s two-year military bombardment.

A spokesperson for United Nations chief Antonio Guterres said on Thursday that the UN’s humanitarian office reported that aid collection has been “limited” due to the “rerouting ordered by the Israeli authorities”.

“You will recall that convoys are now forced to go through the Philadelphi Corridor along the border with Egypt, and then up the narrow coastal road. This road is narrow, damaged and heavily congested,” Farhan Haq told reporters.

“Additional crossings and internal routes are needed to expand collections and response.”

Meanwhile, the Israeli military has continued to carry out attacks across Gaza in violation of the ceasefire agreement.

On Saturday, Israeli fighter jets, artillery and tanks shelled areas around Khan Younis, in the south of the territory. The army also demolished residential buildings east of the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza.

Al Jazeera’s Tareq Abu Azzoum reported that witnesses in Khan Younis described “constant heavy shelling and drone fire hitting what’s left of residential homes and farmland” beyond the so-called yellow line, where Israeli forces are deployed.

“We have also been told by Gaza’s Civil Defence agency that it’s struggling to reach some sites close to the yellow line because of the continuation of air strikes and Israeli drones hovering overhead,” Abu Azzoum said.

Israeli attacks on Gaza have killed at least 222 Palestinians and wounded 594 others since the ceasefire took effect, according to the Ministry of Health in the enclave.

Israeli leaders have defended the continued military strikes and accused Hamas of violating the ceasefire agreement by not returning all the bodies of deceased Israeli captives from the enclave.

But the Palestinian group says that retrieval efforts have been complicated by widespread destruction in Gaza, as well as by Israeli restrictions on the entry of heavy machinery and bulldozers to help with the search.

Late on Friday, the International Committee of the Red Cross said it had transferred the bodies of three people to Israel after they were handed over by Hamas.

But Israel assessed that the remains did not belong to any of the remaining 11 deceased Israeli captives, according to Israeli media reports.

Al-Sharaa’s trip, planned for November 10, will be first-ever visit by a Syrian president to the White House.

United States President Donald Trump will host Syria’s interim leader, Ahmad al-Sharaa, for talks on November 10, according to Washington’s envoy to Damascus, in what would mark the first-ever visit by a Syrian president to the US capital.

Tom Barrack, the US envoy to Syria, told the Axios newspaper on Saturday that al-Sharaa is expected to sign an agreement to join an international US-led alliance against the ISIL (ISIS) group during his visit.

The Reuters news agency also cited a Syrian source familiar with the matter as saying that the trip was expected to take place within the next two weeks.

According to the US State Department’s historical list of foreign leader visits, no previous Syrian president has paid an official visit to Washington.

Al-Sharaa, who seized power from Bashar al-Assad last December, has been seeking to re-establish Syria’s ties with world powers that had shunned Damascus during al-Assad’s rule.

He met with Trump in Saudi Arabia in May, in what was the first encounter between the two nations’ leaders in 25 years.

The meeting, on the sidelines of Trump’s get-together with the leaders of the Gulf Cooperation Council, was seen as a major turn of events for a Syria that is still adjusting to life after the more than 50-year rule of the Assad family.

Al-Sharaa also addressed the United Nations General Assembly in New York in September.

Barrack, the US envoy to Syria, told reporters on the sidelines of the Manama Dialogue in Bahrain that Washington was aiming to recruit Damascus to join the coalition the US has led since 2014 to fight against ISIL, the armed group that controlled about a third of Syria and Iraq at its peak, between 2014 and 2017.

“We are trying to get everybody to be a partner in this alliance, which is huge for them,” Barrack said.

Al-Sharaa once led Syria’s offshoot of al-Qaeda, but a decade ago, his anti-Assad rebel group broke away from the network founded by Osama bin Laden, and later clashed with ISIL.

Al-Sharaa once had a $10m US reward on his head.

Al-Sharaa, also referred to as Abu Mohammed al-Julani, had joined fighters battling US forces in Iraq before entering the Syrian war. He was even imprisoned by US troops there for several years.

The US-led coalition and its local partners drove ISIL from its last stronghold in Syria in 2019.

Al-Sharaa’s planned visit to Washington comes as Trump is urging Middle East allies to seize the moment to build a durable peace in the volatile region after Israel and Hamas earlier this month began implementing a ceasefire and captives’ deal. That agreement aims to bring about a permanent end to Israel’s brutal two-year war in Gaza.

The fragile ceasefire and captive release deal continues to hold, but the situation remains precarious.

Israeli strikes in Gaza earlier this week killed 104 people, including dozens of women and children, the enclave’s health authorities said. The strikes, the deadliest since the ceasefire began on October 10, marked the most serious challenge to the tenuous truce to date.

Meanwhile, Syria and Israel are in talks to reach an agreement that Damascus hopes will secure a halt to Israeli air strikes and the withdrawal of Israeli troops who have pushed into southern Syria.

Barrack told the Manama Dialogue earlier that Syria and Israel continued to hold de-escalation talks, which the US has been mediating.

He told reporters that Syria and Israel were close to reaching an agreement, but declined to say when exactly a deal could be reached.

Israel and Syria have been Middle East adversaries for decades.

Despite the overthrow of al-Assad last December, territorial disputes and deep-seated political mistrust between the two countries remain.