STORY: Children in Gaza suffer from skin disease amid lack of water, medicine
SHOOTING TIME: Recent footage
DATELINE: Aug. 14, 2024
LENGTH: 00:02:11
LOCATION: GAZA, Palestine
CATEGORY: HEALTH

SHOTLIST:
1. various of Al-Aqsa hospital
2. SOUNDBITE 1 (ARABIC): HALIMA BARAKA, Deir al-Balah-based Palestinian
3. various of people gathering outside the hospital
4. SOUNDBITE 2 (ARABIC): KHALIL AL-DIQRAN, Spokesperson of Al-Aqsa Hospital
5. various of displaced people sheltering inside a school

STORYLINE:

With limited access to water and sanitation, communicable diseases and skin infections continue to rage across Gaza, according to a report released by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in late July.

Overcrowding of displaced people in areas that lack water, hygiene and a sewage system has already led to the spread of diseases, including skin diseases among children, it added.

The World Health Organization said that 103,385 cases of scabies and lice, 65,368 of skin rashes and over 11,000 of chicken pox had already been registered as of June 30.

SOUNDBITE 1 (ARABIC): HALIMA BARAKA, Deir al-Balah-based Palestinian
"The tent was full of dirt and sand, so the children went to the sea, which was also polluted. My children got skin diseases and I had to use some primitive methods to relieve their pain, but the blisters spread all over their bodies. We suffer from the lack of cleaning materials, which have become very expensive and we cannot buy them because of the war."

SOUNDBITE 2 (ARABIC): KHALIL AL-DIQRAN, Spokesperson of Al-Aqsa Hospital
"The number of displaced people in the tents was a factor in the spread of diseases. The main reason for this is the overflow of sewage water, the spread of insects and the unnatural environment in which the displaced live, which caused the spread of skin diseases to a large extent among children, who were infected in very large numbers."

Marwan al-Hams, director of Naser Hospital in Khan Younis city in the southern Gaza Strip, told Xinhua that "there is a significant increase in the number of people, including children, men and women, who are infected with the skin diseases."

Al-Hams added that the situation is exacerbated by the shortage of treatments for these conditions, increasing the risk of infections being transmitted to those wounded in the Israeli attacks.

"We can say that Gaza now is witnessing a health disaster," al-Hams said, calling on the international community to help people in Gaza by pressuring Israel to allow medical supplies and equipment to enter Gaza as soon as possible."

Xinhua News Agency correspondents reporting from Gaza, Palestine.
(XHTV)