Gaza’s girls cut off their hair for lack of combs, shampoo or soap

When girls complain to Gaza pediatrician Lobna al-Azaiza that they have no comb, she tells them to cut off their hair.

It’s not just combs. Israel’s blockade of the territory, ravaged by 10 months of war, means there is little or no shampoo, soap, period products or household cleaning materials.

Israel says it allows essential aid in, but maintains a blockade in order to prevent the smuggling of weapons. It also claims that Hamas has diverted aid for its own use.

Waste collection and sewage treatment have also collapsed, and it’s easy to see why contagious diseases that thrive on overcrowding and lack of cleanliness — such as scabies and fungal infections — are on the rise.

“In the past period, the most common disease we have seen was skin rashes, skin diseases, which have many causes, including the overcrowding in the camps, the increased heat inside the tents, the sweating among children, and the lack of sufficient water for bathing,” the doctor says.

Azaiza used to work at Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahiya until Israeli tanks separated the north of the besieged enclave from the south, as the IDF seeks to topple the Hamas terror group that rules Gaza, after its devastating attack on southern Israel on October 7.

Like most of Gaza’s medics, she has adapted and continues to treat patients, walking to work past her own ruined house, demolished by an Israeli strike.

The tent clinic she set up with a small team began by treating children, but has by necessity become a practice for whole families, most of whom have also been ordered or bombed out of their homes, like the vast majority of Gaza’s 2.3 million people.

Even the medication that is available is often unaffordable; a tube of simple burn ointment can now cost 200 shekels ($53).

Azaiza has little doubt where the immediate solution lies:

“The border crossing must be opened so that we can bring in medications, as most of the current ones are ineffective: zero effect, there is no effect on the skin diseases that we see.”