Burn patients face excruciating recovery as medicines dwindle under Israeli blockade of Gaza
KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza (AP) — Hamza Abu Shabab cringed in pain as his mother pulled off his shirt and eased his bandaged head back onto his pillow so she could apply ointment to his small, burned body.
The 7-year-old suffered third degree burns across his head, neck and shoulders when, frightened by an Israeli airstrike, he spilled a hot plate of rice and lentils onto himself in his family's tent in southern Gaza last month.
His recovery has been slowed by Israel's blockade, now in its third month, that bars all medicine, food, fuel and other goods from entering Gaza. His burns have gotten infected – the boy's immune system is weakened by poor nutrition and supplies of antibiotics are limited, said his mother, Iman Abu Shabab. Iman Abu Shabab, 30, stands next to her 7-year-old son, Hamza, who lies in bed with third-degree burns caused when, frightened by an Israeli airstrike, he spilled a hot plate of rice and lentils on himself in the family's tent in southern Gaza last month, at Nasser hospital in Khan Younis, Gaza Strip, Sunday, May 4, 2025.(AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
'Had there not been a siege or it was a different country, he would have been treated and cured of his wounds,' she said at her son's bedside in Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis.
Israel's blockade, imposed since March 2, has forced hospitals and clinics across Gaza to stretch limited stocks of medicines even as needs increase. For burn patients, the lack of supplies is particularly excruciating.
Burns are painful and susceptible to infection, but hospitals, including Nasser are short on painkillers, anesthetics, dressings and hygiene materials, said Julie Faucon, the medical coordinator for Gaza and the occupied West Bank with Doctors Without Borders.
Burn cases are surging
Since Israel resumed bombardment across Gaza in mid-March, the number of patients with strike-related burns coming into Nasser Hospital has increased fivefold, from five a day to 20, according to Doctors Without Borders, which supports the facility. The burns are also bigger, covering up to 40% of people's bodies, Faucon said.
Some patients have died because burns impacted their airways and breathing or because they developed severe infections, she said.
While strikes are a main cause of burns, people also seek treatment for accidents, such as spilling hot liquids. That is in part due to the squalid living conditions, with hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians squeezed into tents and crowded shelters, often cooking over wood fires.
Hamza was one of more than 70 patients in Nasser Hospital's burns and orthopedic ward — as many as it could hold — with more streaming in for daily care.
His mother said Hamza has undergone nine surgeries, including four on his face. The hospital ran out of the liquid painkillers used for children, and he struggles to swallow the larger pills, she said.
Lack of food also slows recovery
In another room, 4-year-old Layan Ibrahim Sahloul sits despondently among her dolls, with second-degree burns across her face, foot and stomach. A week ago, a strike on her house in Khan Younis killed her pregnant mother and two siblings, burying her under the rubble.
Layan has difficulty moving and has become withdrawn and in a constant state of fear, said her aunt, Raga Sahloul. She also suffers from malnutrition, she said.
'I am scared it will take her months instead of weeks to heal,' said her aunt.
The number of malnourished children has swelled under Israel's ban on food to Gaza, with aid groups warning that people are starving. Without proper nutrition, patients' recovery is slowed and their bodies can't fight infection, say health professionals.
At the meeting of Netanyahu's security Cabinet this week, which decided to expand operations in Gaza, ministers were told that 'at this point there is enough food in Gaza,' without elaborating. according to two Israeli officials, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the meeting..
Israel says its blockade and renewed military campaign aim to pressure Hamas to release the remaining 59 hostages it holds and to accede to Israel's demands that it disarm. Rights groups have said the blockade is a 'starvation policy' and a potential war crime.
The United Nations has warned that Gaza's health-care system is on the brink of collapse, overwhelmed by casualties with essential medicines running out.
Life in tents brings suffering
Doctors say they're also worried about prospects for long term care for burn patients. Many need reconstructive surgery, but few plastic surgeons remain in Gaza. Israel has increasingly rejected entry for international medical staff in recent weeks, aid workers say, though some continue to have access.
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At the end of April, 10-year-old Mira al-Khazandar was severely burned on her arms and chest when a strike hit near her tent. Worried that she will have permanent scars, her mother combs pharmacies looking for ointments for her.
Mira's been able to return to the family's tent to recover, but she suffers from the sand and mosquitos there, said her mother Haneen al-Khazandar. She has to go regularly to the hospital, which risks infecting her burns and causes her pain, standing under the sun waiting for transport.
'She is slowly recovering because there is no treatment and no medicines and no food,' she said. 'She is tired, she can't sleep all night because of the pain, even after I give her medicine, it doesn't help.'
——
Associated Press writers Wafaa Shurafa in Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip and Sally Abou AlJoud in Beirut, Lebanon contributed.
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A blunt ax swings This has forced 'indiscriminate grant terminations, payment freezes for ongoing research, and blanket holds on awards regardless of the quality, progress, or impact of the science,' the declaration says. Some NIH employees have previously come forward in televised protests to air grievances, and many walked out of Bhattacharya's town hall with staff. The declaration is the first cohesive effort to register agency-wide dismay with the NIH's direction. A Signal group became the place for participants to sort through NIH chatter on Reddit, discern rumor from reality and offer mutual support. The declaration took shape in that group and as word spread neighbor to neighbor in NIH offices. The dissenters remind Bhattacharya in their letter of his oft-stated ethic that academic freedom must be a lynchpin in science. 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In a number of cases, trials that were mostly completed were rendered useless without the money to finish and analyze the work, the letter says. 'Ending a $5 million research study when it is 80% complete does not save $1 million,' it says, 'it wastes $4 million.' The mask comes off The four-page letter, addressed to Bhattacharya but also sent to Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and members of Congress who oversee the NIH, was endorsed by 250 anonymous employees of the agency besides the 92 who signed. Jenna Norton, who oversees health disparity research at the agency's National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, recently appeared at a forum by Sen. Angela Alsobrooks, D-Md., to talk about what's happening at the NIH. At the event, she masked to conceal her identity. Now the mask is off. She was a lead organizer of the declaration. 'I want people to know how bad things are at NIH,' Norton told The Associated Press. The signers said they modeled their indictment after Bhattacharya's own Great Barrington Declaration of October 2020, when he was a professor at Stanford University Medical School. His declaration drew together likeminded infectious disease epidemiologists and public health scientists who dissented from what they saw as excessive COVID-19 lockdown policies and felt ostracized by the larger public health community that pushed those policies, including the NIH. 'He is proud of his statement, and we are proud of ours,' said Sarah Kobrin, a branch chief at the NIH's National Cancer Institute who signed the Bethesda Declaration. Cancer research is sidelined As chief of the Health Systems and Interventions Research Branch, Kobrin provides scientific oversight of researchers across the country who've been funded by the cancer institute or want to be. But sudden cuts in personnel and money have shifted her work from improving cancer care research to what she sees as minimizing its destruction. 'So much of it is gone — my work,' she said. The 21-year NIH veteran said she signed because 'I don't want to be a collaborator' in the political manipulation of biomedical science. Ian Morgan, a postdoctoral fellow with the National Institute of General Medical Sciences, also signed the declaration. 'We have a saying in basic science,' he said. 'You go and become a physician if you want to treat thousands of patients. You go and become a researcher if you want to save billions of patients. 'We are doing the research that is going to go and create the cures of the future,' he added. But that won't happen, he said, if Trump's Republican administration prevails with its searing cuts to grants. The NIH employees interviewed by the AP emphasized they were speaking for themselves and not for their institutes or the NIH. 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A blunt ax swings This has forced 'indiscriminate grant terminations, payment freezes for ongoing research, and blanket holds on awards regardless of the quality, progress, or impact of the science,' the declaration says. Some NIH employees have previously come forward in televised protests to air grievances, and many walked out of Bhattacharya's town hall with staff. The declaration is the first cohesive effort to register agency-wide dismay with the NIH's direction. A Signal group became the place for participants to sort through NIH chatter on Reddit, discern rumor from reality and offer mutual support. The declaration took shape in that group and as word spread neighbor to neighbor in NIH offices. The dissenters remind Bhattacharya in their letter of his oft-stated ethic that academic freedom must be a lynchpin in science. 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