Gaza: Skin diseases afflict children as war drags on without end

Like thousands of Gaza children, Yasmine Al Shanbari, 3, is not only suffering from the upheaval of war all around them. She is ravaged by skin disease and no relief is in sight, with medicine scarce and few hospitals functioning in the Israeli-besieged enclave.

The 10-month-old war between Israel and Palestinian militant group Hamas has left the Gaza Strip with no clean running water, a shortage of aid and medicine and raw sewage everywhere, giving rise to skin diseases and other afflictions.

Red scratchy patches have spread all over Yasmine's face and her father feels helpless as she sits in his lap in a burnt-out, crowded school where they have taken shelter in the Jabalia urban refugee camp in north Gaza.

Tiny little insects were visibly flitting around her face, while piles of garbage rotted in the high summer heat outside.

"The disease she has on her face has been there for almost 10 days now and hasn't gone away," said her father, Ahmed Al Shanbari. "We did not leave out any medicine to give to her, hoping it will clear up from her face."

The death toll continues to climb in Gaza, with almost 40,000 Palestinians killed, according to Gaza authorities.

Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist group that rules Gaza, set off the war when its militants stormed over the border into Israel on October 7, killing 1,200 people and taking over 250 hostage, according to Israeli tallies.

Skin diseases are not the only illnesses that are creeping into one of the most densely populated places on earth.

"Yesterday, we were talking about hepatitis, and today we are talking about contagious skin diseases. Every day there are new diseases spreading among children," said Doctor Wissam Al Sakani, spokesman for Kamal Adwan Hospital.

"We adults manage somehow, but the children, God help them, have no food or medicine. The situation is indescribable," Ahmed added.