Features

Features FILE - A Palestinian flag is seen with the background of a section of the wall in the Philadelphi corridor between Egypt and Gaza, on the background, near the southern Gaza Strip town of Rafah, Sunday, July 1, 2007. (AP Photo/Khalil Hamra, File)

Why is Israel Demanding Control Over 2 Gaza Corridors in the Cease-Fire Talks?

Israel's demand for lasting control over two strategic corridors in Gaza, which Hamas has long rejected, threatens to unravel cease-fire talks aimed at ending…

Asharq Al Awsat
Features Displaced Palestinians sleep in a tent on the first day of the Eid al-Fitr festival, marking the end of the holy month of Ramadan, at a camp beside a street in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, on April 10, 2024, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Hamas group. (AFP)

‘Afraid to Sleep’: Nights Bring Fresh Horrors in War-Torn Gaza

As the sun sets over Gaza, displaced Palestinians in plastic tents are plunged into darkness, tormented by the buzzing of Israeli drones, constant artillery…

Features A Palestinian child looks on while being examined by a doctor at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, 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, in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip, August 18, 2024. (Reuters)

Aid Groups in Gaza Aim to Avert a Polio Outbreak with a Surge of Vaccinations 

The threat of polio is rising fast in the Gaza Strip, prompting aid groups to call for an urgent pause in the war so they can ramp up vaccinations and head off…

Features Slain Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri. (AFP)

Rafik Hariri after First Meeting with Bashar Assad: I Became More Afraid for Syria, Not Lebanon

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)
Features Palestinians wait for a cobbler to repair their shoes in the city of Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip on July 5, 2024, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas group. (AFP)

Besieged Gazans Share Shoes, Wear Same Clothes for Months

For months, Safaa Yassin has dressed her child in the same white bodysuit, an all-too-familiar tale in the Gaza Strip, which has been devastated by 10 months…

Features Uncommitted delegate to the Democratic National Convention Abbas Alawieh answers questions during an interview Wednesday, Aug. 14, 2024, in Dearborn, Mich. (AP Photo/Jose Juarez)

The Pro-Palestinian 'Uncommitted' Movement is at an Impasse with Top Democrats as the DNC Begins

Of the thousands of delegates expected to gather Monday at the Democratic National Convention, just 36 will belong to the “uncommitted” movement sparked by…

Asharq Al Awsat
Features Palestinian gravedigger Saadi Hassan Barakeh say he has been burying the dead for 28 years, but has never been so busy amid the Gaza war. MAHMUD HAMS / AFP

Graves on Top of Graves… Undertakers in Gaza Are Exhausted

More than 10 months into the Gaza war, so many bodies are arriving at Al-Soueid cemetery in Gaza’s Deir el-Balah that gravediggers are forced to build graves…

Asharq Al Awsat (Gaza)
Features FILE - Palestinians displaced by the Israeli air and ground offensive on the Gaza Strip walk next a dark streak of sewage flowing into the streets of the southern town of Khan Younis, Gaza Strip, Thursday, July 4, 2024. Health authorities and aid agencies are racing to avert an outbreak of polio in the Gaza Strip after the virus was detected in the territory's wastewater and three cases with a suspected polio symptom have been reported. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi, File)

First Case of Polio Confirmed in a 10-month-old Child in Gaza

Palestinian health officials on Friday reported the first case of polio in an unvaccinated 10-month-old child in the Gaza city of Deir al-Balah, the first case…

Asharq Al Awsat
Features A view of Cairo during a power cut. (Reuters)

Seven Arab Countries Struggle with Power Cuts as Renewable Energy Is Seen as a Solution

Seven Arab countries are struggling with frequent power cuts. The reasons for the inability to meet local demand for electricity may vary from one country to…

Sabry Nageh
Features Palestinians mourn their relatives killed in the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip, outside a morgue in Rafah, southern Gaza, Wednesday, Jan. 10, 2024. (AP)

As Gaza Death Toll Passes 40,000, Corpses Are Buried in Yards, Streets, Tiered Graves

Tiers of graves are stacked deep underground in a bloated Gaza cemetery, where Sa’di Baraka spends his days hacking at the earth, making room for more dead. …

Features Mohammed Abu Al-Qumsan, whose wife Jumana, and newborn twins Aser and Aysal were killed in an Israeli strike while he was bringing the twins' birth of certificates, according to medics, reacts as he holds the certificates, in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip, August 13, 2024. (Reuters)

Newborn Twins Killed in Gaza Strike While Father Registered Birth

Mohammed Abu al-Qumsan had just collected the birth certificates of his three-day-old twins when he received the news: his Gaza apartment had been bombed,…

Features A sign warns against approaching a building at risk of collapse in Lebanon. (file photo)

Latest Earthquake Strikes Fear in Lebanon: All Old Buildings at Risk of Collapse

A recent strong earthquake that hit Syria and was felt in Lebanon has alarmed the Lebanese people, bringing back memories of the devastating quake that struck…

Youssef Diab (Beirut)
Features Smoke rises following an Israeli air strike as internally displaced Palestinians sit next to their tents in Khan Younis camp, southern Gaza Strip, 13 August 2024. EPA/HAITHAM IMAD

A New Round of Gaza Cease-Fire Talks is Starting. Why is a Deal So Elusive?

International mediators are hoping to kickstart stalled cease-fire negotiations between Israel and Hamas with a new round of talks meant to finally clinch a…

Asharq Al Awsat
Features  Lobna al-Azaiza, a Palestinian pediatrician providing free medical services to displaced Palestinians, examines a girl in a tent near her house, which was destroyed in an Israeli strike, in Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip, August 12, 2024. (Reuters)

Gaza’s Girls Cut off Their Hair for Lack of Combs

When girls complain to Gaza pediatrician Lobna al-Azaiza that they have no comb, she tells them to cut off their hair. It's not just combs. Israel's blockade…

Features The Norwegian Refugee Council also says that Israel had denied Palestinians access to 99 percent of the land in Area C of the West Bank, which is solely under Israeli control - AFP

As War Halts Israel Permits, Palestinians Return to Farming

Hussein Jamil held a permit to work in Israel for 22 years until the war in Gaza broke out. Now, after setting up a greenhouse in a West Bank village, he…

Asharq Al Awsat
Features Yahya Sinwar in Gaza on Oct. 28, 2019 (Reuters)

Is Sinwar Really Leading Hamas from Underground?

Hamas’ recent appointment of Yahya Sinwar as its leader has raised questions about his ability to guide the Palestinian movement during one of the most…

Asharq Al Awsat (Gaza)
Features Flames rise following an Israeli strike on a residential building, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Gaza City, in this screen grab taken from a video, August 11, 2024. Reuters TV via REUTERS

Extreme Heat Poses New Challenge for Aid Agencies in Gaza

In Gaza, the sky is full of menace. As well as the missiles that rain down on schools and shelters, the brutal rays of the sun have made the summer unbearable…

Asharq Al Awsat
Features Flame and smoke rise after flare fell in the southern Lebanese village of Kfar Kila, amid ongoing cross-border hostilities between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, as pictured from Marjayoun, near the border with Israel, August 9, 2024. REUTERS/Karamallah Daher/File Photo Purchase Licensing Rights

Lebanon’s Displaced Fear a Bleak Future

Displaced in south Lebanon five times, Kamel Mroue and his wife Mariam are anxious about their next move as they follow the news of clashes between Israel and…

Asharq Al Awsat
Features Palestinian boxer Muazzaz Abayat, 37, holds his 2-month-old son Mohammed and daughter Mira, 5, at home in the West Bank city of Bethlehem, Wednesday, July 17, 2024, days after his release from Israeli prison, frail, disoriented and with no initial memory of his family. (AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo)

Released Palestinians Describe Worsening Abuses in Israeli Prisons

Frequent beatings, overcrowding, withholding of basic rations. Released Palestinians have described to The Associated Press worsening abuses in Israeli prisons…

Asharq Al Awsat
Features In this Nov. 21, 1989 file photo about 200,000 people gather in Wenceslas Square, Prague, Czechoslovakia. Dubbed the “Velvet Revolution” for its non-violent nature, the protests led to the resignation of the Communist Party's leadership on November 28. (AP)

Bangladesh Protests Are Not the First Time Student Uprisings Have Helped Bring about Radical Change 

In Bangladesh, weeks of protests against a quota system for government jobs turned into a broad uprising that forced the prime minister to flee the country and…

Features A man walks on an overpass beneath a giant billboard that reads "Enough, we are tired, Lebanon doesn't want war" on a street in Beirut on August 7, 2024, amid regional tensions during the ongoing war between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas movement in the Gaza Strip. (AFP)

Anti-War Posters Crop up Across Lebanon

Anti-war posters have cropped up across Lebanon expressing objection to the war launched by Hezbollah in southern Lebanon against Israel in support of Hamas in…

Youssef Diab (Beirut)
Features Boys cool off with water from a mobile tanker as summer temperatures soar in Iraq's northern autonomous Kurdish region © Safin HAMID / AFP

In Iraq's Summer, Residents of Kurdistan's Erbil Ache for Water

The taps have run dry, and the wells are almost empty. In the capital of Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan region, 80-year-old Babir hasn't bathed in weeks and…

Asharq Al Awsat
Features Palestinians in the courtyard of the school housing displaced people after it was targeted by Israeli bombing in Gaza City on Saturday (AFP)

The Last Refuge of Gaza’s Displaced Turn into Temporary Graves

Israeli forces have turned schools - which the displaced used as their last refuge - into mass graves, after systematically targeting many of them in the…

Asharq Al Awsat (Gaza)
Features A Middle East Airlines commercial aircraft flies near Beirut's southern suburbs as it approaches the airport runway on August 9, 2024. (AFP)

Lebanese on Edge amid Fears of All-Out Israel-Hezbollah War

Fears of a major escalation between Israel and Hezbollah have left many Lebanese on edge, exacerbating mental health problems and reviving traumas of past…