Burn-like rashes and hunger: Gaza's children face skin disease crisis

Overcrowded camps in Gaza have seen a surge in skin diseases, with children most affected as healthcare services collapse. In Nasser Hospital, a mother watches her six-year-old son with angry rashes and burn-like wounds that doctors cannot explain. The child’s frail condition is linked to hunger and malnutrition after severe food shortages and soaring prices left the family unable to afford basic meals. Contaminated water, garbage, and insects and rodents spread in shelters packed with displaced people and lacking sanitation. Humanitarian aid faces severe restrictions, limiting relief despite a ceasefire intended to increase aid entry. Doctors have failed to clearly diagnose the illness as new marks continue appearing.

"In a corridor inside Nasser Hospital, Iman Abu Jame sits beside her six-year-old son, Yasser, as she watches his frail body, exhausted by illness, and tries to make sense of what has happened to him. Yasser's skin is covered in angry rashes and burn-like wounds that doctors cannot explain. His body is frail from hunger. For the 32-year-old Iman, Yasser's illness cannot be separated from the suffering caused by more than two and a half years of Israel's genocidal war on Gaza."

"Their family lives in a cramped tent in al-Mawasi, west of Khan Younis, an area full of fellow displaced people, which Iman describes as catastrophic. The heat is suffocating. Garbage piles up around the tents. Contaminated water is all many families can access. Insects and rodents crawl through overcrowded shelters where thousands of displaced people are packed together with no sanitation and little food."

"Before the war, Yasser was healthy, Iman says. Then came the hunger. Months of severe food shortages and soaring prices left the family unable to afford even basic meals. Malnutrition weakened his body first. Then came the infections. I have never seen infections like these in my life, Iman tells Al Jazeera. But there are children all around us in this hospital suffering from the same kinds of rashes."

"Doctors have so far failed to clearly diagnose Yasser's condition. New marks continue appearing across his body while his strength withers. Malnutrition was the beginning, his mother says. His father does not work, and we cannot provide food, milk or vegetables. We cannot e"

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