U.S. considers providing lethal aid to Syrian rebels Top news: The Obama administration is once more considering supplying rebels in Syria with lethal aid, a policy reversal that would firmly inject the United States into a conflict that has claimed the lives of 80,000 Syrians and shows no signs of abating. But President Obama and anonymous senior administration officials speaking to the Washington Post remain cagey about the likelihood that the United States will provide arms to Syrian rebels when the White House has consistently pursued a strategy aimed at preventing the United States from becoming entangled in yet another armed conflict in the Middle East. If it is confirmed that the Assad regime has used chemical weapons, Obama said that "there are some options that we might not otherwise exercise that we would strongly consider." While Obama staked out that highly cautious position in public, a senior administration official told the Post that the current thinking within the White House indicates that the United States is on an "upward trajectory" toward providing "assistance that has a direct military purpose." Throughout the conflict in Syria, the Obama administration has shown a clear preference toward finding a negotiated solution, and Tuesday's leak to the media may be part of a diplomatic strategy aimed at getting the Russian government to finally stop protecting the Assad regime. Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke via phone on Monday, and Secretary of State John Kerry plans to travel to Russia in coming days. Guantanamo Bay: President Obama said Tuesday that he would once more seek to close the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, an effort he abandoned during his first term amid stiff opposition in Congress. Inmates at the prison are currently conducting a mass hunger strike, with 100 of the prison's 166 inmates participating. Hassan Nasrallah, the head of Hezbollah, said that fighters from his organization may intervene in Syria to protect the Assad regime. Israeli forces killed a Palestinian militant in a missile strike after an Israeli settler was stabbed to death in the West Bank. The Arab League revised its proposal for achieving peace between Israel and Palestine by offering concessions to Israel. President Obama said that he would decline to assess Mexico's decision to scale back security cooperation with the U.S. until he meets with Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto later this week. A fistfight broke out in the Venezuelan parliament amid an ongoing dispute over the country's recent presidential election. The Mexican Congress passed a bill aiming to introduce more competition into the country's telecommunications industry. The death toll in the collapse of a factory in Bangladesh passed 400. Insurgents killed an Afghan official tasked with setting up peace talks with the Taliban. A Pakistani court issued Pervez Musharraf, the country's former military ruler, a lifetime ban against holding public office. Russian security officials placed Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the elder of two brothers alleged to have carried out the Boston Marathon bombings, under surveillance during a six-month visit to Russia. Greek labor unions have launched a 24-hour general strike to protest austerity measures. Europe's human rights court ruled that the jailing of former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko was a politically motivated violation of her rights. A French convert, Gilles Le Guen, fighting with Islamist militants in Mali was captured. Rebels in eastern Congo say they are preparing to fight a new peacekeeping force due to arrive in the country with an expanded mandate to take aggressive action against armed rebels. Human Rights Watch said that satellite images reveal that 2,275 homes were destroyed in a raid by the Nigerian army on the town of Baga.