NEW DELHI: The cost of war is heavy, and for the innocent, it is back-breaking. In Gaza, the Israel-Hamas war that has already stretched to over eight months has given way to dangerous skin diseases among children.
Many Gazans, adults, and children are suffering from skin infections ranging from scabies to chicken pox, lice, impetigo, and other debilitating rashes.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), over 150,000 people in the Palestinian territory have contracted skin diseases in the squalid conditions into which displaced Gazans have been forced since the Israel-Hamas war erupted on October 7.

Talking to news agency AFP, Wafaa Elwan, a Gazan woman, said, "We sleep on the ground, on sand where worms come out underneath us." Her family is one of thousands living on a sandy patch near the sea, near the central Gaza City of Deir al-Balah.

The mother of seven believes infections are inevitable. 

"We cannot bathe our children as before. There are no hygiene and sanitary products for us to wash and clean the place. There's nothing."
Earlier, parents used to tell their children to wash in the Mediterranean. But pollution that has built up as war has devastated basic facilities has increased disease risk.

"The sea is all sewage. They even throw garbage and baby napkins into the sea," she said.

The WHO has reported 96,417 cases of scabies and lice since the war started in Gaza. This includes 9,274 cases of chickenpox, 60,130 cases of skin rashes, and 10,038 impetigo cases.
According to Sami Hamid, a pharmacist who runs a makeshift clinic in the Deir al-Balah camp, scabies, and chickenpox are especially widespread in the coastal Palestinian territory.

Children's skin suffers from "the hot weather and the lack of clean water," he said.

Mohammed Abu Mughaiseeb, the medical coordinator in Gaza for Doctors Without Borders (MSF), told AFP that children are vulnerable because, "they are children — they play outside, they'll touch anything, eat anything without washing it".

He explained that the hot weather increases sweating and accumulation of dirt that causes rashes and allergies, which, if scratched, lead to infections. Furthermore, he warned that Gaza's children are already highly vulnerable to disease because their immune systems are compromised by malnutrition.

MSF doctors fear that other skin conditions, such as leishmaniasis, which can be fatal in its most virulent form, can also make an appearance among the millions of displaced Gazans.

Not only this, as per the WHO, other diseases have also rampaged through camps for the displaced, feeding on poor hygiene.
As per the international agency, already 485,000 cases of diarrhoea have been reported.
The latest United Nations counts show that of the 2.4 million Gaza population, 1.9 million have been displaced.