United Nations Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed said on Wednesday that she believes the cease-fire agreement in Lebanon is holding, in spite of continued Hezbollah attacks and attempted attacks on Israel, which have prompted Israeli strikes.

“It’s holding as fast as it can,” Mohammed said at the Aspen Security Forum in Washington, D.C., and is “successful so far,” in spite of what she described as breaches on both sides. “We keep holding onto our seats for that,” she continued.

Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) urged President Joe Biden to take dramatic action to “send a message” to Israel in his final weeks in office, even if the incoming Trump administration might reverse such actions.

Van Hollen has urged Biden to sanction right-wing members of the Israeli government, trigger laws blocking offensive military aid to Israel and unilaterally recognize a Palestinian state, contingent on changes to the Palestinian Authority’s “pay-to-slay” martyr payment policy.

President-elect Donald Trump named Adam Boehler as his special presidential envoy for hostage affairs on Wednesday, touting Boehler’s experience negotiating “with some of the toughest people in the [w]orld.” 

During the first Trump administration, Boehler served as the first CEO of the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation, a body that invests in low- and middle-income nations. Trump credited Boehler, who is Jewish, as a negotiator of the Abraham Accords in his Wednesday announcement. 

Senate Republicans are praising President-elect Donald Trump’s demand for the immediate release of the hostages in Gaza, while expressing doubt that his desire for a cease-fire ahead of Inauguration Day is realistic or the best course of action. 

Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform on Monday that, “If the hostages are not released prior to January 20, 2025, the date that I proudly assume Office as President of the United States, there will be ALL HELL TO PAY in the Middle East, and for those in charge who perpetrated these atrocities against Humanity. Those responsible will be hit harder than anybody has been hit in the long and storied History of the United States of America.” 

Jewish Americans and Israeli Americans have a significantly harder time getting a first response from an employer when applying to jobs, according to new research published on Wednesday by the Anti-Defamation League. 

The report highlighted that since the Oct. 7 terror attacks in Israel Jews in America may be missing out on job opportunities “just because of their identity.”

In the same sanctuary where Omer Neutra was bar mitzvahed less than a decade ago, a standing-room-only crowd of more than 1,000 people packed the pews at the Midway Jewish Center in Syosset, N.Y., on Tuesday morning for Neutra’s memorial service. 

The 21-year-old Long Island native, an IDF tank commander, was among the first soldiers to respond to the Oct. 7 attack, serving near the community of Kibbutz Nahal Oz. He was thought to have been captured alive in the attacks and taken into the Gaza Strip. In the 14 months since, Neutra’s parents mounted a determined, emotion-laden effort to get their “lone soldier” son released — including speaking at the Republican National Convention in July. But their tireless fight came to an end on Monday when Israel’s military announced that it had determined that Neutra was killed on Oct. 7, and his body taken to Gaza, where it remains. 

As Democrats recover from their bruising defeat last month, one voice looking to help liberals make sense of their loss to President-elect Donald Trump is Hasan Piker, a left-wing streamer with 2.8 million followers on Twitch, a video-game streaming platform. More than 7.5 million people tuned in to his election night livestream, more than the number of viewers for either MSNBC or CNN that night.

“I don’t think that the Democratic Party can podcast itself out of this issue,” Piker told CNN last week, responding to criticism that Vice President Kamala Harris hurt her chances by declining to appear with the popular podcast host Joe Rogan. “I think that they need to change their policies.”

On a promotional webinar with the New York City chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America on Tuesday, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) boasted of taking the lead role in organizing opposition to supplemental U.S. aid to Israel earlier this year.

The NYC DSA, which has long advanced anti-Israel policies, promoted an anti-Israel rally a day after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel last year, which featured chants expressing support for the attack. Ocasio-Cortez condemned that rally at the time. Despite her frequent and outspoken criticism of Israel and opposition to U.S. aid, Ocasio-Cortez has clashed repeatedly with the DSA and others on the left who’ve said she still hasn’t gone far enough.