Health and medicine

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Feature

Trump's aid freeze forces war-battered Syrian hospitals to halt services

As Syria emerges from its grueling civil war, the doctors who survived the regime’s deliberate bombardment of medical facilities are confronting a new threat: the suspension of American aid.

Elizabeth Hagedorn

By Elizabeth Hagedorn

In Washington, DC, reporting on diplomacy, regional politics, human rights

“CLOSE IT DOWN!” Mr. Trump wrote of U.S.A.I.D. on Truth Social,

Analysis

US aid freeze threatens Sudan’s lifeline as USAID support hangs in balance

As the Trump administration dissolves the US' largest aid agency, Sudan, embroiled in conflict and a humanitarian crisis, could soon suffer the consequences.

Adam Lucente

By Adam Lucente

In New York City, reporting on regional news, militancy, climate change

Displaced families fleeing Israeli army operations in Jabalia in northern Gaza take the main Salah al-Din road toward Gaza City on Oct. 23, 2024.

Tens of thousands flee Jabalia after Israel sends more troops to northern Gaza

The Israeli military's push into northern Gaza has killed at least 770 Palestinians, according to Gaza's government office, and has caused tens of thousands to flee the Jabalia area.

Ambulances and paramedics carry people wounded in an Israeli bombing of Beirut to Sahel Hospital.

Lebanon evacuates Beirut hospital as Israeli strikes expand

Lebanon on Monday evacuated its Sahel Hospital after the Israeli military alleged that Hezbollah stores cash and gold amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars in a bunker beneath it.

Latest News

UAE evacuates nearly 100 Gaza patients as 10,000+ await transfer

Mayssa (C), 15, and Yara (R), 10, from Khan Younis, on board the UAE evacuation flight that arrived from Eilat to Abu Dhabi on Sept. 9, 2025.

United Arab Emirates

World Food Program suspends staff movement after vehicle shot at in Gaza

Displaced Palestinians carry a box of food rations provided by the World Food Program at a makeshift street market in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on March 14, 2024, amid ongoing battles between Israel and the militant group Hamas.

Egypt ups precautions as WHO declares mpox emergency

A child affected by monkeypox sits on his father's legs while receiving treatment in the Central African Republic on October 18, 2018.

India’s Modi ‘deeply concerned’ about Saudi King Salman’s health

Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Salman bin Abdulaziz (2nd R) shakes hands with India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi (C) after they joined heads of states and international organizations for a "family photo" during the G20 Summit in Brisbane on Nov. 15, 2014.

A rainbow appears across the sky as internally displaced Palestinians who fled the Israeli military bombardment and incursion into the northern Gaza Strip shelter in makeshift tents.

UN estimates 43,000 Gaza housing units wiped out, 80% of population displaced

As Hamas and Israel appeared to maintain the cease-fire for the fourth day, Palestinians rushed to secure aid and check damages to their homes.

A cannabis field is seen in the village of Azila in Ketama region at the foot of the marginalized and underdeveloped mountainous region of Rif, Morocco, Sept. 16, 2022.

In Europe's cannabis market, Morocco faces stiff competition from Israel

A medic works at a laboratory at the Nablus hospital, run by Doctors Without Borders (MSF), in Iraq's northern city of Mosul on Dec. 16, 2021.

Iraq's war-battered cities grapple with rising resistance to antibiotics

Six years after the liberation of Mosul from the Islamic State, the city battles a silent enemy: abnormally high rates of multidrug-resistant infections. It's a phenomenon fueled by decades of war that poses a massive threat to global health.

A man rinses his face with water from a bottle to cool off during a heat wave in Tehran on July 11, 2023.

Iran: Unprecedented heat wave triggers emergency holidays

The high temperatures have widely been linked to the overall impacts of climate change, which is hitting Iran twice harder than global averages, according to official data.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attends the weekly cabinet meeting in his office in Jerusalem, on June 25, 2023. (Photo by ABIR SULTAN / POOL / AFP) (Photo by ABIR SULTAN/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)

Analysis

Why did Israel’s Netanyahu conceal his heart condition?

The hospitalization of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Sunday morning and the placement of a pacemaker suddenly revealed to Israeli citizens some details on the true health condition of their leader.

Mazal Mualem

By Mazal Mualem

In Tel Aviv, reporting on politics

A worker fumigates a house against the Aedes aegypti mosquito to prevent the spread of dengue fever in a neighborhood in Piura, northern Peru, on June 11, 2023. (Photo by ERNESTO BENAVIDES / AFP) (Photo by ERNESTO BENAVIDES/AFP via Getty Images)

Dengue fever outbreak in Egypt forces Russia to issue tourism warning

Most cases of the mosquito-borne virus are not severe. Russia has implemented health measures for flights from Egypt as a result of the outbreak.

Hagop Kantarjian, M.D., poses with one of his favorite paintings, "Seated Woman with Red Guitar" (2021).

Interview

From Lebanon to Texas, award-winning cancer doctor charts new course for leukemia research

Dr. Hagop Kantarjian, whose life work has transformed research, diagnosis and treatment of leukemia, also expands cancer research networks and collaboration in the Middle East.

Dr. Hagop Kantarjian

Dr. Hagop Kantarjian

Chair of the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center leukemia department

Women chant slogans in front of the Istanbul courthouse in Istanbul on April 5, 2023.

Turkey denies female inmate access to tampons

Imposing a long-held taboo, Turkish authorities have denied a female inmate’s access to disposable tampons.

An employee takes a box of medicines on shelves at a pharmacy in the Turkish capital Ankara on December 13, 2021. - Turkeys pharmacists have brought to light the struggle of many patients who need medicines to treat diseases like diabetes and childrens fevers but cannot find them. They say the crisis that has deteriorated because of the fall in the Turkish liras value. (Photo by ADEM ALTAN/AFP via Getty Images)

Turkey's medicine shortages could turn into 'drug famine' with no end in sight

In all Turkish pharmacies Al-Monitor visited recently, the drug shortage was palpable. Children's medicines, antibiotics, some cancer drugs top Turkey's long-unavailable drug list.

A Saudi family arrive at a hospital in the center of the capital Riyadh, on May 14, 2013.

Saudi Arabia ahead of UK in women's health index, leads Arab world

A global survey reveals that Saudi Arabia is the leading country for women's and girls' health in the Arab world, while other regional countries sat at the bottom of the 122 global list.

MAZEN MAHDI/AFP via Getty Images

Negev Forum convenes in UAE with Jordan absent from Arab-Israeli meeting

Senior officials from the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Egypt, Morocco, the United States and Israel have convened in Abu Dhabi for the third Negev Forum steering committee meeting.

A displaced Syrian child carries a jug of water.

Water crisis worsens in Syria's Idlib as support dries up

The "Goal" organization, which has been active in Syria since 2012, has stopped pumping water in villages and towns as support for it ends