President Obama has been wary of open-ended military commitments in the Middle East. But the president, shown speaking in Estonia on Sept. 3, now appears likely to expand the current bombing campaign against the Islamic State. Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images hide caption
Palestinian boys at a damaged building in Rafah, the Gaza Strip, on Thursday. U.S. attempts to broker a comprehensive peace deal have again been shelved as Israel and Hamas have waged their third round of heavy fighting in Gaza in the past six years. Ibrahim Khatib/Barcroft Media/Landov hide caption
Palestinian men walk amidst debris following an Israeli military strike in Gaza city, on July 23, 2014. Mahmud Hams/AFP/Getty Images hide caption
A convoy of Israeli tanks roll near Israel's border with the Gaza Strip on Friday. There's a sense of repetition to the violence in the region, as Hamas fires rockets at Israel and Israel responds with bombs and the threat of a ground invasion. Menahem Kahana/AFP/Getty Images hide caption
Emily Harris is NPR's international correspondent based in Jerusalem. Stephanie Federico/NPR hide caption
An Iraqi Turkmen fighter looks at an icon of seventh century Imam Ali bin Abi Talib, Islam's fourth caliph and cousin and son-in-law of Prophet Muhammad, in Taza Khormato, Iraq, earlier this month. Karim Sahib/AFP/Getty Images hide caption
A Saudi Arabian man wears a mask to protect against the Middle East respiratory syndrome at his farm outside Riyadh, May 12. Fayez Nureldine/AFP/Getty Images hide caption
Participants of the Diplomatic Culinary Partnership try different foods at the State Department in Washington during a gathering of the American Chef Corps, a network of chefs from across the U.S. Jewel Samad/AFP/Getty Images hide caption
Fear of MERS is prompting Saudis to wear mouth and nose masks, like this man on the street of the Red Sea coastal city of Jeddah on April 27. AFP/Getty Images hide caption
Demonstrators rally to protest sexism in Brasilia, Brazil, last June. A new protest erupted last week after a study released by Brazil's Institute for Applied Economic Research reported 65 percent of Brazilians believe women who dress provocatively deserve to be attacked. Eraldo Peres/AP hide caption
On the left: Women wearing burqas walk by the Gulf of Aqaba in Jordan in 2006. Right: Women in bikinis visit a beach in Rio de Janeiro in 2013. Marco Di Fabio and Nelson Almeida/Getty Images hide caption
Two men, who were among about 80 civilians evacuated on Friday, look out from a bus in the Syrian city of Homs. EPA/Landov hide caption
Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Moallem (left) at the peace talks in Montreux, Switzerland, on Wednesday. Gary Cameron/Reuters/Landov hide caption
Palestinians protest in the center of the West Bank city of Ramallah against the continuation of negotiations with Israel, and demand that Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas not meet with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Jan. 15, 2014. Abbas Momani/AFP/Getty Images hide caption
Some of the destruction at the scene of Friday's car bombing in Beirut. AFP/Getty Images hide caption