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Skin Diseases Afflict Gaza's Children as War Drags on Without End

Wateen al-Adasi is cared for at the Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahiya, northern Gaza Strip. The baby girl developed a skin condition due to malnutrition. )Omar Al-Qattaa/AFP- 3 Jul 2024)
Wateen al-Adasi is cared for at the Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahiya, northern Gaza Strip. The baby girl developed a skin condition due to malnutrition. )Omar Al-Qattaa/AFP- 3 Jul 2024)
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Skin Diseases Afflict Gaza's Children as War Drags on Without End

Wateen al-Adasi is cared for at the Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahiya, northern Gaza Strip. The baby girl developed a skin condition due to malnutrition. )Omar Al-Qattaa/AFP- 3 Jul 2024)
Wateen al-Adasi is cared for at the Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahiya, northern Gaza Strip. The baby girl developed a skin condition due to malnutrition. )Omar Al-Qattaa/AFP- 3 Jul 2024)

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, Reuters reported.

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.

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.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has sounded the alarm that Hepatitis A and polio are also spreading among children.

"UN agencies warned of the high risk of the further spread of infectious diseases in Gaza, amid chronic water scarcity and no way to adequately manage waste and sewage," it said in a report earlier this month.

"The waste management system in Gaza has collapsed. Piles of trash are accumulating in the scorching summer heat. Sewage discharges on the streets while people queue for hours just to go to the toilets."

Israel denies responsibility for delays in getting urgent humanitarian aid into Gaza, says the UN and others are responsible for its distribution once inside the enclave.

Ammar al-Mashharawi, a 2-year-old toddler, also has a fiery red rash all over his face and body in Kamal Adwan Hospital, which was struck by Israeli missiles in May.

"Look at the child, his whole body is like this. We have been to more than one hospital to find medicine for him," said Ammar's father Ahmed as he held his wailing son while medical staff checked him.

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

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Fearing Israeli Strikes, Residents Flee South Beirut Hezbollah Stronghold

A man walks on an overpass beneath a giant billboard that reads "Enough, we are tired, Lebanon doesn't want war" on a street in Beirut on August 7, 2024, amid regional tensions during the ongoing war between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas movement in the Gaza Strip. (AFP)
A man walks on an overpass beneath a giant billboard that reads "Enough, we are tired, Lebanon doesn't want war" on a street in Beirut on August 7, 2024, amid regional tensions during the ongoing war between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas movement in the Gaza Strip. (AFP)
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Fearing Israeli Strikes, Residents Flee South Beirut Hezbollah Stronghold

A man walks on an overpass beneath a giant billboard that reads "Enough, we are tired, Lebanon doesn't want war" on a street in Beirut on August 7, 2024, amid regional tensions during the ongoing war between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas movement in the Gaza Strip. (AFP)
A man walks on an overpass beneath a giant billboard that reads "Enough, we are tired, Lebanon doesn't want war" on a street in Beirut on August 7, 2024, amid regional tensions during the ongoing war between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas movement in the Gaza Strip. (AFP)

Batoul and her family have been scrambling to secure housing outside Beirut's southern suburbs where an Israeli strike killed a senior Hezbollah commander last week, but spiking demand has sent prices soaring.

Many in the southern suburbs -- a packed residential area known as Dahieh which is also a Hezbollah bastion -- have been trying to leave, fearing full-blown war between the Iran-backed group and Israel in the wake of the commander's killing.

"We are with the resistance (Hezbollah) to death," said Batoul, a 29-year-old journalist, declining to give her last name as the matter is sensitive.

"But it's normal to be scared... and look for a safe haven," she told AFP.

Iran and its regional allies have vowed revenge for the killing, blamed on Israel, of Hamas's political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran last week, just hours after the Israeli strike in Beirut's southern suburbs killed Hezbollah's top military commander Fuad Shukr.

Hezbollah has traded near-daily fire with Israeli forces in support of ally Hamas since the Palestinian militant group's October 7 attack on Israel triggered war in Gaza.

After the twin killings, fears have mounted of an all-out war, with foreign airlines suspending Beirut flights and countries urging their nationals to leave.

Last week's Beirut strike also killed an Iranian adviser and five civilians -- three women and two children.

"Whoever says they want to stay in Dahieh while it's being bombed is lying to themself," Batoul said.

- 'No choice' -

On Tuesday, Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah said his Shiite movement and Iran were "obliged to respond" to Israel "whatever the consequences".

Batoul said she had been trying unsuccessfully to rent in "safe areas" -- unaffiliated to Hezbollah -- outside Beirut, but landlords were charging "exorbitant prices".

She said one landlord cancelled suddenly even after she agreed to pay six months' rent in advance for a flat in the mountain town of Sawfar.

A 55-year-old teacher and Hezbollah supporter, who requested anonymity because the matter is sensitive, said she felt lucky to find a flat about 15 kilometers (nine miles) outside Beirut.

But it came with a price tag of $1,500 a month, in a country battered by more than four years of economic crisis.

The teacher, also a Dahieh resident, said price gouging was rampant, noting another apartment was listed online for $1,500 a month "but when we arrived, they asked for $2,000".

"They know we have no choice. When there is a war, people will pay any amount of money to be safe," she said.

But "many people will stay (in Dahieh) because they cannot afford to rent," she added.

Riyad Bou Fakhreddine, a broker who rents out homes in the Mount Lebanon area near Beirut, said apartments were being snapped up "within half an hour to an hour of being listed".

Some landlords have asked him to raise apartments normally priced at around $500 a month to as high as $2,000, he said.

He said he refused.

"I tell them I'm not a crisis profiteer. I don't want to take advantage of people's fears," he said.

- 'Polarization' -

Almost 10 months of cross-border violence have killed some 558 people in Lebanon, most of them fighters but also including at least 116 civilians, according to an AFP tally.

On the Israeli side, including in the annexed Golan Heights, 22 soldiers and 25 civilians have been killed, according to army figures.

Ali, who rents serviced apartments in central Beirut, said his phone had "not stopped ringing" ahead of Nasrallah's speech.

"I booked 10 flats in two days," he said.

"Many people walked in and booked on the spot... Or called me and were here within an hour," said the 32-year-old, who requested to be identified only by his first name.

In 2006, Hezbollah fought a devastating war with Israel, whose air force bombarded Beirut's southern suburbs nightly for a month, flattening hundreds of apartment blocks.

Back then, many people from across Lebanon's sectarian divides expressed support for Hezbollah and solidarity with the Shiite Muslim community, many of whom lost their homes and livelihoods.

But this time, Dahieh resident Batoul said solidarity was lacking, with politicians divided after Hezbollah decided unilaterally to begin attacking Israeli positions on October 8.

In 2006, "there wasn't such polarization," she said.

Landlords and others profiting from high demand on housing now are simply driven by greed, Batoul said.