Ola Ziadeh, 28, held her two-year-old son Adam Ziadeh’s shirt up to reveal red bumps and scabs all over his stomach and chest. The little boy screamed in pain at the sudden movement. The welts on his skin swelled large, covered with the deep red of dried blood. 

Adam’s condition started with what looked like a pimple on his nose that seemed innocuous at the time. But soon after, the blisters spread to his neck and chest. Then his sister, Handa, 3, also got the rash. Ziadeh rushed to Nasser Hospital for help and was told her kids had to have an IV drip to fight an infection. 

“We’re seeing a high prevalence of skin lesions and skin infections. This is bullous impetigo,” Dr. Ahmed Al-Farra, director of pediatrics at Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis, told CBC freelance videographer Mohamed El Saife. 

“This is due to lack of hygiene, personal hygiene, lack of materials for washing, material for disinfectant, a lack of soup, lack of good water, bad sanitation.” 

Reports of a suspicious skin rash going around in the Gaza Strip have taken over social media in recent days. Health professionals in the strip say the spread is because of the lack of hygiene products and clean sanitation.  

Al-Farra says it can lead to serious complications if not treated properly including “renal failure.” 

“This skin infection is very dangerous.”

Over 65,000 cases of skin rashes 

As of June 30, there were over 65,000 cases of skin rashes in Gaza, and over 100,000 cases of scabies and lice, according to the World Health Organization. 

Impetigo, the infection that Dr. Al-Farra is treating at Nasser, is common and mainly affects children and infants. It starts with a blister and, after about a week, spreads to the rest of the body, and is highly contagious. The reddish sores, often found around the nose, mouth, arms and legs, eventually burst and develop a crust. It’s typically treated with antibiotics.

But Nasser Hospital has been overwhelmed by patient demand after being sieged in February by Israeli troops. At the time, an Israeli spokesperson described that raid as “precise and limited,” and said the IDF had credible information of Hamas members hiding in Nasser, which Hamas called “lies.” The raid displaced some 2,000 people to Rafah and Deir al-Balah. 

Since then, medical staff have struggled with the high level of patients coming in, and a lack of supplies to deal with them. Nasser has over 500 patients in its care, according to Doctors Without Borders, and is one of the largest hospitals in the Gaza Strip. It is the last main hospital in southern Gaza and provides critical care for patients suffering from severe burns, trauma, as well as newborns and pregnant women. 

“The hospitals are crowded, the patients are lying on the grounds, so it’s very difficult … a bad situation,” Al-Farra said. 

Canadian aid workers at Nasser say the hospital is reaching the “breaking point” as it struggles to meet its original demand. 

The situation has been deteriorating since the Israel-Hamas war began on Oct. 7, after a Hamas-led attack on southern Israel killed over 1,200 and took over 200 hostages into Gaza. Israel’s responding ground and air incursion has killed 39,000, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. 

‘Everything is contaminated’

Sitting nearby on the next bed over at the hospital, Rawan Abu Odeh, 30, brushed and tied four-year-old Sahar’s hair into pigtails with pink elastics, for a half-up, half-down hairdo. The little girl’s face was filled with scabs from the skin infection that afflicted her. Her eyebrows curled upwards as she looked around the hospital room, her eyes showing a deep sadness. 

“They gave me cream and antibiotics … but it spread, as you can see,” she said. “It started growing behind her ears, on her neck and chest.” 

Odeh has been displaced multiple times throughout the war, between Rafah and Khan Younis, in a home and in tents and sometimes living in the street. In the midst of all the movement, cleanliness and personal hygiene have been difficult to maintain. 

“I find bugs in her hair and every day I want to clean her, but it’s for nothing,” she said. “There’s no cleanliness, there’s no care, no soap, no shampoo.… Everything is contaminated.” 

In his office in Nasser, Dr. Al-Farrah stressed the importance of opening the Rafah border crossing and ending the war. 

“We need to permit the entry of materials for the hospitals and medical supplies,” he said. 

“We need a lot of things in the hospital that are not available in Gaza.”