(Image Credit: MEE)
Lana al-Sharif was just eight years old when Israel’s war on Gaza began. Nineteen months later, the Palestinian girl is now known in her displacement camp as the “elderly child”. With grey hair and white patches across her skin, Lana was diagnosed with vitiligo after suffering a severe panic attack triggered by an Israeli air strike on her neighbourhood in January 2024. Vitiligo is a chronic autoimmune disorder that causes patches of skin to lose pigment or colour.
“She was terrified and trembling. It was a severe panic attack,” her father, Khalil al-Sharif, told Middle East Eye from the makeshift tent where the family now lives in Khan Younis, southern Gaza. “We took her to hospital and she stayed there for a full day. She was shaking throughout the night, even after the bombing had stopped,” he recalled. “Two days after we returned home, two white spots appeared on her face.”
Even before the current war, nine out of ten children in Gaza were already suffering from some form of conflict-related post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), largely the result of repeated Israeli military assaults.
In June 2024, UNICEF estimated that nearly all of Gaza’s 1.2 million children are in need of mental health and psychological support.
Read HERE the full article by The Middle East Eye
