STORY: Like many other children in Gaza, three-year-old Yasmine Al-Shanbari is ravaged by skin disease.
There's little chance of relief for her - the ten-month war between Israel and Palestinian militant group Hamas has left Gaza with no clean water, streets running with sewage, and a shortage of aid and medicine.
Tiny insects flit around the little girl's face.
While piles of garbage rot in the summer heat outside the burnt-out school in which she and her father Ahmed are taking shelter, in Jabalia refugee camp in the north.
They're displaced, like most people in Gaza.
AHMED AL-SHANBARI: “We really suffer a lot from skin diseases in the schools. The schools, first of all, are dilapidated and there is no cleanliness. As you can see, the school is overcrowded, and not every child is like the other. Each child is different, even from different areas. For example, my daughter Yasmine is sensitive to diseases. The disease she has on her face has been there for almost ten days now."
Ammar al-Mashharawi, two and a half-years-old, has a fiery rash all over his face and body.
His father Ahmed is seeking treatment for him in Kamal Adwan Hospital. They've tried others to no avail.
"The reason is the lack of food and medicine, a shortage of everything. We are suffering from everything; there is no medicine or food for the children. These children were recently weaned, and they can’t find eggs, bananas, or anything good to support them. There is no milk, semolina, or anything at all. We adults manage somehow, but the children, God help them.”
Skin diseases are not the only illnesses stalking children in one of the most densely populated places on earth.
The World Health Organization has sounded the alarm that Hepatitis A and polio are spreading among children.
It blamed a chronic scarcity of water, and trash and sewage in the streets, all compounded by people living in crowded into shelters where they have to stand in line for hours to use the toilets.
Dr. Wissam Al-Sakani:
"The overcrowding of citizens in shelters has also contributed to the rapid spread of skin diseases. Yesterday, we were talking about hepatitis, and today we are talking about contagious skin diseases. Every day there are new diseases spreading among children, such as vitiligo, tinea, psoriasis, and scabies.”
