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Crowded camps, depleted clinics and scarce soap and water make social distancing and even hand-washing impossible for millions of refugees.

In an embattled enclave in Syria, doctors have seen patients die from what looks like the coronavirus but are unable to treat them because they lack beds, protective gear and medical professionals. A refugee camp in Bangladesh is so cramped that its population density is nearly four times that of New York City, making social distancing impossible. Clinics in a refugee camp in Kenya struggle in normal times with only eight doctors for nearly 200,000 people.

As wealthy countries like the United States and Italy struggle with mass outbreaks of the coronavirus, international health experts and aid workers are increasingly worried that the virus could ravage the world’s most vulnerable people: the tens of millions forced from their homes by violent conflict.

There is no running water, soap is expensive and hand sanitizer is an unaffordable luxury. She cannot even imagine what social distancing for her family of 16 would look like in the three tents they share in a makeshift camp near the Turkish-Syrian border.

COVID-19 is heading toward the war-ravaged province like a "slow moving tsunami," the World Health Organization says, and could claim tens of thousands of lives. 

Idlib's population of 3 million, already buckling under extreme shortages of medicine, is considered to be one of the world's most defenseless against the virus.Medical facilities in Idlib have been decimated in targeted airstrikes over the years. Doctors are already overstretched and hospital beds are in short supply.

What has taxed Mr. Kavala and his friends the most in the 29 months since his incarceration is the question of why he has been singled out so harshly.

The answer may be simply: everything he stands for.He represents the leftist-leaning, secular elite, which in Turkey’s polarized society is the opposite of the president and his supporters. They are from religiously conservative, Islamist circles that were long sidelined from power.

“Osman represents another culture,” said Asena Gunal, who runs his flagship organization, Anadolu Kultur. “Someone who is open, cultured, who speaks English, can talk to foreigners, active in society; something they see as dangerous.”

Lebanese Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri has resigned, saying in a televised broadcast from Saudi Arabia that he feared for his life, while also fiercely criticising Iran.

Mr Hariri promised a "new era for Lebanon" after two years of political deadlock

The prime minister's resignation has opened up a chasm of uncertainty in Lebanon

A 24-hour sequence of political bombshells began on Saturday afternoon, when Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri announced his resignation from the Saudi capital of Riyadh, blindsiding his country's political establishment. Hours later, Saudi Arabia's official news agency reported that the country's military had intercepted a Yemen-borne ballistic missile over Riyadh.

Some of Saudi Arabia's most high-profile princes and businessmen were being sacked and detained in an anti-corruption drive led by bin Salman.

The events serve as an opening salvo for a new period in the region's crisis-ridden history, analysts say.

Trump Bashing and a Missile: Tehran Marks U.S. Embassy Takeover

A ballistic missile and signs mocking President Trump were on display on the streets of Tehran on Saturday as thousands of Iranians gathered for the anniversary of the 1979 seizure of the United States Embassy.

The commemoration, always a forum for the airing of anti-American sentiment, took on new vitriol this year, directed at President Trump.

At least 452 people were killed and thousands injured after a powerful earthquake struck near the border of Iran and Iraq late Sunday.

The earthquake hit late Sunday night with the epicenter in a rural area on the Iranian side of the border, just south of the Iraqi city of Halabja, according to the US Geological Survey, which tracks earthquake activity around the world.The quake was at a depth of 23 km (just over 14 miles), which is considered shallow, according to the survey. It was felt across the region with aftershocks hitting Pakistan, Lebanon, Kuwait and Turkey, news agencies in those countries reported.

The Iranian Red Crescent Society was working in the hard-hit areas Monday with sniffer dogs, debris-removal teams, and teams offering emergency shelter and treatment, said Mansoureh Bagheri, a spokeswoman for the Iranian Red Crescent in Tehran.

The Big Question as the U.N. Gathers: What to Make of Trump?

Every year, the president heads to New York to welcome world leaders to the United Nations General Assembly

He gives a speech and meets with an endless string of foreign potentates to discuss a dizzying array of complicated, often intractable issues

Within minutes, there was an enormous explosion — a shoot of red flame and a funnel of black smoke that reached into the sky.

Every day, for weeks, the battle to take western Mosul from the Islamic State has looked like this: a block-by-block crawl as casualties mount.

“The CTS has made enormous sacrifices since 2014, and many of the old hand are dead, killed in Anbar Province and elsewhere,” said David M. Witty, a retired colonel with the United States Army Special Forces and former adviser to the counterterrorism service, known as CTS.

The Palestinian prisoners are not political prisoners," he said. "They are convicted terrorists and murderers. They were brought to justice and are treated properly under international law."

Top Israeli cyberoperators penetrated a small cell of extremist bombmakers in Syria months ago, the officials said. That was how the United States learned that the terrorist group was working to make explosives that fooled airport X-ray machines and other screening by looking exactly like batteries for laptop computers.

“There were folks working hard on this stuff, and there were some accomplishments that had an impact, but there was no steady stream of jaw-dropping stuff coming forward as some expected,” said Mr. Geltzer, who now teaches law at Georgetown University Law Center. “There was no sort of shining cybertool.”