Features

Features Displaced kids sort through trash at a street in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza Strip, Tuesday, Aug. 27, 2024. (AP)

What Is Known About Polio’s Return to the Gaza Strip 

Health authorities in the Gaza Strip confirmed the first case of polio in 25 years earlier this month. The infection and subsequent partial paralysis of the…

Features A truck carries humanitarian aid across Trident Pier, a temporary pier to deliver aid, off the Gaza Strip, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian group Hamas, near the Gaza coast, May 19, 2024. US Army Central/Handout via REUTERS

Challenges of the Gaza Humanitarian Aid Pier Offer Lessons for the US Army

It was their most challenging mission. US Army soldiers in the 7th Transportation Brigade had previously set up a pier during training and in exercises…

Asharq Al Awsat
Features The mother of Palestinian boy Abdul Rahman Abu Al-Jidyan, who is the first person to contract polio in Gaza in 25 years, gestures as she looks after him in their tent, in Deir Al-Balah, in the central Gaza Strip August 28, 2024. REUTERS/Ramadan Abed

Experts: Baby in Gaza Has Strain of Polio Linked to Mistakes in Eradication Campaign

The baby in Gaza who was recently paralyzed by polio was infected with a mutated strain of the virus that vaccinated people shed in their waste, according to…

Asharq Al Awsat
Features The recent Egyptian-Somali summit in Cairo, where Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud have signed a joint defense agreement (Egyptian Presidency)

What Are Egypt’s Goals for its Military Presence in Somalia?

A Somali official’s comment about Egyptian military equipment and delegations arriving in Mogadishu has sparked questions about Egypt’s goals in Somalia,…

Asharq Al Awsat (Cairo)
Features Palestinian teenager Diaa Al-Adini, who had his both arms amputated after being wounded in an Israeli strike on August 13 and was transferred from Al-Aqsa hospital due to an Israeli evacuation order, is helped by his sister Aya to drink iced juice on a beach outside a field hospital, in Deir... Purchase Licensing Rights

Gaza Teen Amputee Recalls Nightmare of Losing Arms in Israeli Strike

*Teenager Diaa al-Adini was one of the few Palestinians who found a functioning hospital in war-ravaged Gaza after he was wounded by an Israeli strike. But he…

Asharq Al Awsat
Features Palestinian children break up stones collected from homes destroyed by previous Israeli air strikes, to sell them to make gravestones, in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, 21 August 2024. (EPA)

Leisure ‘Forgotten’: Gaza War Drives Children to Work

Some crush rocks into gravel, others sell cups of coffee: Palestinian children in Gaza are working to support their families across the war-torn territory,…

Features Dr. Robert Musole, medical director of the Kavumu hospital (R) consults an infant suffering from a severe form of mpox at the Kavumu hospital, 30 km north of Bukavu in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, August 24, 2024. (AFP)

New Mpox Strain Is Changing Fast; African Scientists Are ‘Working Blind’ to Respond 

Scientists studying the new mpox strain that has spread out of Democratic Republic of Congo say the virus is changing faster than expected, and often in areas…

Features Tyre resident Youssef Khalaf sits at a juice stand as he chats with a friend, in Tyre, southern Lebanon August 26, 2024. REUTERS/Aziz Taher Purchase Licensing Rights

After Hezbollah-Israel Exchange, Lebanese Wary Conflict Could Drag On

Residents of Lebanese cities felt only partial relief on Monday that one of the biggest exchanges of fire between armed group Hezbollah and the Israeli…

Asharq Al Awsat
Features 
Passengers wait for their flights at Beirut-Rafic Hariri International Airport, following the exchange between Hezbollah and Israel in southern Lebanon, in the Southern Suburbs of Beirut, Lebanon, 25 August 2024. EPA/ABBAS SALMAN

Its Economy and Infrastructure Battered, Can Lebanon Afford a War With Israel?

The ferocious exchange of fire by Hezbollah and the Israeli military is raising fears of a regional war beyond the tense border. The risks for Lebanon are far…

Asharq Al Awsat
Features Col. Muammar Gaddafi

Libya Political Process Deadlocked

Libya has undergone significant changes since the fall of Col. Muammar Gaddafi in 2011. The Libyans have struggled to establish a stable government, leading to…

Camille Tawil (London)
Features Displaced Syrian children play in a mobile swimming pool set up by the Smile Younited charity organization, during the sweltering summer heat in the Kafr Naseh camp on July 27, 2024. (Photo by AAREF WATAD / AFP)

Mobile Pools Offer Relief from Heat to Children in North Syria

In a run-down north Syria camp, children displaced by the country's 13-year war played and splashed in volunteer-run mobile swimming pools that provided much…

Asharq Al Awsat
Features  A peacekeeper of the Spanish Contingent looks through binoculars from a watchpost at the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) barracks near Khiam in southern Lebanon on August 23, 2024. (AFP)

UN Peacekeepers in South Lebanon Crossfire

On the deserted border between Lebanon and Israel, Spanish UN peacekeepers have for more than 10 months effectively been caught in a war zone. Several Blue…

Features  Activists confront a settler (left) near the occupied West Bank village of Beit Jala. (AFP)

Tent Demos Turn West Bank Eviction into Rallying Cry

Flanked by smartphone-wielding peace activists, members of an evicted Palestinian family marched onto land seized by armed Israeli settlers, shouting "Out! Out…

Features Yasser Arafat, Farouk al-Qaddoumi and other Palestinian officials pray at the graves of victims of a 1985 Israeli raid on the PLO headquarters in Tunis in 2001. (AFP)

Farouk al-Qaddoumi: We Visited Assad and He Ordered Arafat’s Release from Mezzeh Prison

No history of the Arab world in the past seven decades could be written without stopping at length at the Palestinian Fatah movement. The history of the…

Ghassan Charbel (London)
Features An image of Kamala Harris with the word "Genocide" written is left on the pavement as police officers line up during a protest as the Democratic National Convention (DNC) takes place in Chicago, Illinois, on August 20, 2024. © Matthew Hatcher, AFP

Harris Pitches Muscular Foreign Policy, and Nuance On Gaza

Kamala Harris is making her pitch to voters as a muscular defender of US interests while aiming for nuance on the painful issue of Gaza -- hoping to cover…

Asharq Al Awsat
Features Lebanon says it has enough drugs and medical supplies to last at least four months in case of a wider war - AFP

Bracing For War: Lebanese Hospitals Ready Emergency Plans

In Lebanon's biggest public hospital, nurses are busy honing their life-saving skills as the spectre of all-out war looms, 10 months into intensifying clashes…

Asharq Al Awsat
Features A Palestinian girl is examined by a doctor amid fears over the spread of polio after the first case was reported by the Ministry of Health, as the conflict between Israel and Hamas continues, at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, in Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip, August 18, 2024. REUTERS/Ramadan... Purchase Licensing Rights

Baby Paralyzed in Gaza's 1st Case of Type 2 Polio for 25 Years, WHO Says

A 10-month-old baby in war-shattered Gaza has been paralyzed by the type 2 polio virus, the first such case in the territory in 25 years, the World Health…

Asharq Al Awsat
Features FILE PHOTO: AI (Artificial Intelligence) letters and robot hand miniature in this illustration, taken June 23, 2023. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo

ISIS Supporters Turn to AI to Bolster Online Support

Days after a deadly ISIS attack on a Russian concert hall in March, a man clad in military fatigues and a helmet appeared in an online video, celebrating the…

Asharq Al Awsat
Features An UNRWA employee on September 9, 2020 provides polio and rotavirus vaccines for children at a clinic in Bureij refugee camp, central Gaza - AFP

War-battered Gaza Faces Uphill Battle Against Polio

The Gaza Strip's first recorded polio case in 25 years has health workers and aid agencies grappling with the steep obstacles to conducting mass vaccination in…

Asharq Al Awsat
Features Palestinians watch as smoke rises from a building hit by an Israeli strike after a warning from the army to its occupants to evacuate the premises, in the Rimal neighborhood of central Gaza City on August 21, 2024, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Hamas movement. (AFP)

Displaced Gaza Student Tries to Study Despite Destruction of Universities

Shahed Abu Omar, 20, was in her third year studying computer science at Gaza’s Al Azhar University when it was reduced to rubble by Israel's military campaign…

Features A sanitation worker sprays disinfectant, part of a campaign by Sudan's Health Ministry to combat the spread of disease, in Kassala state in eastern Sudan on August 20, 2024. (AFP)

War-Ravaged Sudan Battles Cholera Epidemic 

Lying on a hospital bed, Aisha Mohammed said she is "suffering" from cholera symptoms, an increasingly common ailment in Sudan where a prolonged war has…

Features This picture taken during a guided tour by the Hezbollah media office shows a man salvaging the remains of a destroyed greenhouse at the site of reported overnight Israeli bombardment on Sarein in the Bekaa valley in east-central Lebanon on August 20, 2024. (Photo by AFP)

Strike on Hezbollah Arms Depots Shows Extent of Israeli Intelligence Breach

Israel’s targeting of a Hezbollah arms depot in Lebanon’s eastern Bekaa region on Monday has raised questions about whether Israel has adopted a new form of…

Paula Astih (Beirut)
Features  Palestinian children play next to garbage and sewage at a camp for displaced Palestinians in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip on August 19, 2024, amid the continuing conflict between Israel and the Hamas group. (AFP)

Gaza Engineer Harnesses Sunlight to Make Saltwater Drinkable

In war-ravaged Gaza, every drop of water counts, making Inas al-Ghul's makeshift sun-powered water filter a vital asset for parched Palestinians surviving…

Features President Bashar al-Assad receives PM Hariri for a meeting. (Getty Images)

Lebanese Ex-MP Recalls Shocking Meeting between Rafik Hariri, Bashar Assad on Lahoud Term Extension

Asharq Al-Awsat is publishing a series of excerpts from a new book by former Lebanese MP Bassem al-Sabeh in which he recalls the thorny relationship between…

Asharq Al Awsat (London)