The last time Donald Trump was U.S. president it spelled disaster for Iran — he walked away from a landmark nuclear deal, derailed the country’s economy with sanctions and killed its most revered general. 

As a top adviser to Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei visited Lebanon for talks, Lebanese officials said an American proposal for a cease-fire deal had been passed on to Hezbollah. Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister appeared to urge Iran to convince the militant group to agree to a deal.

A delegation of former hostages held by Hamas in Gaza and their relatives met Thursday with Pope Francis and expressed hope that the incoming and outgoing U.S. administrations would work together to bring the remaining hostages home.

An Israeli airstrike killed at least 12 Lebanese rescue workers on Thursday inside a civil defense center in the eastern city of Baalbek, according to health and rescue officials, hours after state media in Syria said Israeli strikes in and around the capital killed at least 15 people.

Rafael Mariano Grossi of the IAEA was visiting Tehran in an effort to restore his inspectors’ access to Iran’s program and answer still-outstanding questions over it, as he has on previous trips with limited success since Trump unilaterally withdrew the U.S. from the Islamic Republic’s nuclear deal with world powers.

A close aide to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Donald Trump and Jared Kushner this week that Israel is rushing to advance a cease-fire deal in Lebanon, according to three current and former Israeli officials briefed on the meeting, with the aim of delivering an early foreign policy win to the president-elect.

Turkey has been seeking a reconciliation with Syria to address security threats from groups affiliated with Kurdish militants along its southern border and to help ensure the safe return of Syrian refugees. Reconciliation efforts that were brokered by Russia have fizzled out.

As Israel is embroiled in a multifront war, settlement advocates believe Trump’s history of fervent support could translate into their supreme goal: Israeli annexation of the West Bank — a move that critics say would smother any remaining hopes for Palestinian statehood.

For the second time this week, U.S. forces in the Middle East retaliated against Iran-backed militants for attacks on American military personnel and facilities in Syria.

U.S. forces attacked nine Iran-backed targets in Syria over the weekend in response to two strikes on U.S. troops, the Pentagon said Tuesday.