Like thousands of Gaza children, Yasmine al-Shanbari, three, is not only suffering from the turmoil of the war around her. She suffers from a skin disease that may not be cured anytime soon given the scarcity of medicines and the few functioning hospitals in the Israeli-occupied enclave.
The 10-month war between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas has left the Gaza Strip without clean water, lacking aid and medicine and with piles of rubbish everywhere, giving rise to skin diseases and other suffering.
Red, itchy patches spread across Yasmine's face. Her father felt helpless as she sat on his lap in the overcrowded, burned-out school where they had taken shelter, in the refugee camp in the northern Gaza city of Jabalia.
Small insects were seen flying around his face, while piles of garbage rotted in the hot summer heat outside.
“Many suffer from skin diseases here. The school is first of all dilapidated and unclean. As you can see, the school is not like a home, it is crowded, and not all children are like other children. Every child is different. For example, my daughter Yasmine is sensitive to diseases. The disease on her face has been there for almost ten days and has not gone away. We do not have any medicine to give her, which might cure it,” he explained.
Skin diseases are not the only diseases spreading in Gaza.
“In fact, infectious skin diseases are spreading in Kamal Adwan Hospital, especially in the northern Gaza Strip. Cases are piling up in this hospital, which provides services in Gaza City and the northern Gaza Strip. All this is due to the destruction of infrastructure due to the occupation, the accumulation of garbage, and the obstruction of humanitarian aid and essential medical supplies, including disinfectants, which are now almost non-existent in the market,” said Doctor Wissam al-Sakani, spokesman for Kamal Adwan Hospital.
“The overcrowding in the shelters also contributes to the rapid spread of skin diseases. Yesterday we talked about hepatitis, and today we talk about infectious skin diseases. Every day there are new diseases spreading in children, such as vitiligo, tinea, psoriasis, and scabies,” he continued.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has warned that Hepatitis A and polio are also spreading among children in Gaza.
Ammar al-Mashharawi, a two-year-old toddler, also suffered a bright red rash across his face and body at Kamal Adwan Hospital, which was hit by an Israeli missile strike in May.
“The reason is the lack of food and medicine, the lack of everything. We are suffering from everything; there is no medicine or food for the children. These children have just been weaned, and they have no eggs, bananas, or anything that can sustain them. There is no milk, semolina, or anything at all. We adults can handle it, but the children, God help them, have no food or medicine. The situation is indescribable. Look at this child, his whole body is like this. We have gone to more than one hospital to find medicine for him,” commented Ammar’s father, Ahmed al-Mashharawi, holding his son who was crying, complaining about the situation.
Israel denies responsibility for delays in delivering urgent humanitarian aid to Gaza, saying the UN and other countries are responsible for distributing it once it enters the enclave. (ab/uh)
