By Nidal al-Mughrabi and Dawoud Abu Alkas
CAIRO/GAZA, Nov 13 (Reuters) – The excruciating burns run around the side of Masa Yassin’s tiny face, behind her ear, over her scalp and down her neck.
Since her family’s tent burst into flames when a nearby cooking gas tank exploded in July, part of the 6-year-old girl’s treatment has been a clear plastic 3D-printed mask, which helps manage swelling and control the scars on her face.
But soon she will outgrow it, and the international medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres, which operates the only clinic in Gaza that can make her a new one, says it has been barred by Israel from importing the plastic.
“Should there be no masks, my daughter will grow more scar tissue,” said Masa’s mother Islam Yassin, as she gently adjusted straps on the mask of the girl on her lap on a plastic chair in their tent in a camp in Gaza City.
“We would have to resort to surgery instead of masks, and there are no such surgeries in Gaza.”
ISRAELI DISPUTE WITH MSF
More than a year since a ceasefire halted major fighting in Gaza, the entire population of more than 2 million Palestinians lives confined to around a third of the tiny enclave’s territory, mainly in makeshift tents and damaged buildings.
Israeli forces still control everything that enters and exits. Israel says it allows in all needed medical equipment and supplies. But many aid groups say restrictions make it impossible to provide basic treatment desperately needed by a vulnerable population besieged inside a conflict zone.
The custom masks provided by MSF for scores of Gazan burn victims have become embroiled in a dispute between the international medical charity and Israel over Israeli demands for information about local staff working for foreign groups.
Israel has banned MSF’s international staff from Gaza and barred the group from importing any supplies since the end of February, after MSF refused an Israeli demand to submit names of all its local staff in Gaza. MSF says it cannot provide such lists without assurances staff would be safe, because hundreds of medics have been killed during the war.
In a response to a request for comment, COGAT, the unit of the Israeli military responsible for aid to Gaza, confirmed it had barred imports by MSF for failure to comply with requirements, including supplying staff lists needed to prevent “the misuse of humanitarian aid by terrorist organisations”.
It said that unlike MSF, other aid groups had complied and were operating freely. It had approved the entry of more than 24,000 tons of medical supplies into Gaza, it said, and rejected accusations that it was blocking medical aid as a falsehood spread by Hamas militants.
MSF says complying with the Israeli registration requirement would put its staff in danger, and that the victims of the restrictions are vulnerable Palestinian patients like Masa.
“A child’s mutilated face can no longer receive even a basic treatment, not because the technology or the expertise is lacking, but because Israel imposes a regime under which healing itself is a privilege,” Filipe Ribeiro, MSF’s head of mission for Palestine, said in a message to Reuters.
“BROKEN FUTURES”
At an MSF clinic in Gaza City, technicians measured Masa’s face to try to see if they could make adjustments to her existing mask so she can keep wearing it for longer as she grows, since they do not have supplies to make a new one.
“We have now exhausted our stock of plastic sheets and printer filament,” said Mohammed Al-Qatrawi, supervisor of physiotherapy for MSF France in Gaza at the clinic. Once Masa grows and her mask no longer fits properly, it could cause her pain and limit the benefits, he said.
Demand has been surging. There are 70 patients, including 50 children, receiving treatment for facial burns, 20 of whom need masks urgently, he said. With so many children needing new masks, MSF has been decorating some of them with drawings of cartoon characters such as the Smurfs and SpongeBob SquarePants.
If the clinic were forced to halt its service, patients such as Masa would “develop scar-related complications that can affect speaking, eating, drinking, vision, and facial movement,” he said. Children would have worse deformities that could leave them ostracised.
Back outside her tent, Masa plays marbles in the dirt with her twin sister and their younger sister. You can see her face beneath the clear plastic as she smiles.
(Reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi in Cairo and Dawoud Abu Alkas in GazaEditing by Peter Graff)
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