By Kanishka Singh

WASHINGTON, June 20 (Reuters) - The Justice Department said on Monday it opened a probe into a small coffee shop chain in New York City which posted online that it would have turned away pro-Israel U.S. Representative Dan Goldman had it recognized him during a weekend visit.

"The Civil Rights Division has opened an investigation and will bring an enforcement action if warranted," Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon said on X.

By Feras Dalatey

June 22 - A United Nations official warned on Monday that efforts to repair divisions and stabilise southern Syria have stalled nearly a year after deadly sectarian violence in a Druze-majority province shook the country.

A U.N. investigation in March found more than 1,700 people, most civilian members of the Druze religious sect and some members of the Bedouin community, were killed in southern Sweida province in July 2025. It said Syrian government forces, tribal fighters and Druze armed groups may have committed war crimes.

By Nandita Bose and Kanishka Singh

WASHINGTON, June 22 (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump said on Monday "I will do what I have to do" if Iran does not stick to its agreement with Washington.

"If Iran doesn't live up to their agreement, or if they're not behaving, I will do what I have to do," Trump told reporters.

Trump and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian signed an interim U.S.-Iran deal last week, more than three months after the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran and Iran responded with its own attacks on Israel and Gulf states with U.S. bases.

By Alexander Cornwell and Benjamin Raab

JERUSALEM, June 22 (Reuters) - American allies of President Donald Trump this week defended him to an Israeli public anxious about a U.S. interim deal with Iran and White House criticism that together appeared to signal fissures in Israel's decades-old alliance with Washington.

The U.S.-Israeli relationship has been on a roller coaster, from the early confidence they shared after their joint attack on Iran to public disagreements between Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over how to end the four-month-old war.

The International Monetary Fund's Africa director on Monday warned that the economic fallout of the Iran war was creating a "difficult moment" for the region, and that it would take months for Gulf energy production to ramp back up.

"We are now in a difficult moment for the region, in particular after the war in the Middle East," Zeine Zeidane told reporters at the IMF's headquarters in Washington.

"Even though there is a ceasefire today, we know that the disruption will take time to be resolved," he said.

Maritime traffic in the Strait of Hormuz on Monday continued to flow at a faster pace than before the US-Iranian agreement on talks to end the Middle East war, according to tracking firms, despite Tehran's announcement of a renewed closure.

"The latest figures suggest a cautious but visible rebound in traffic following the MoU (memorandum of understanding between the United States and Iran), although the daily pattern remains volatile," Mihail Todorov of AXSMarine, a shipping data provider, told AFP.

By Gram Slattery

ABU DHABI, June 22 (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio will travel Tuesday through Thursday to the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Bahrain, on a trip that will give the Trump administration a chance to sell its preliminary Iran accord directly to Gulf Arab allies.

While in Bahrain, Rubio will also meet with the Gulf Cooperation Council, or GCC, a grouping of six Sunni monarchies that also includes Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Oman, State Department spokesperson Tommy Pigott said on Monday.

By Daphne Psaledakis

WASHINGTON, June 22 (Reuters) - The United States authorized Iranian oil sales on Monday, easing decades-old sanctions as it pushes toward a final peace deal with Tehran in return for commitments on nuclear inspections and free transit through the Strait of Hormuz.

The general license, announced by the Treasury Department, allows the sale of crude oil and petrochemical and petroleum products of Iranian origin through August 21.

By Dawoud Abu Alkas

GAZA CITY, June 22 (Reuters) - Residents of the Gaza Strip have been flocking from suffocating tents to the territory's polluted Mediterranean shore to bathe and wash their clothes, as summer temperatures rise and fresh water remains hard to come by.

Nearly all Gaza's population was displaced during two years of war between Israel and Hamas, with Gazans now crammed into ​a narrow strip along the coast, mainly in tents and damaged buildings.

A huge blast at a Qatar gas hub killed 13 people and injured 66 others, the state's energy minister said on Monday, providing an update on one of the deadliest ever accidents at a Gulf energy facility.

Authorities are investigating the cause of the explosion, which Saad al-Kaabi said was "an accident and not sabotage or hostile in nature", despite earlier Iranian attacks targeting energy facilities in the Gulf during the Middle East war.