In Gaza, a seriously injured girl, Rasil, is fighting for her life due to antibiotic-resistant infections.

Author, Paul Kusiak, Wesam Abumarak and Lina Shaykhuni

Place of work, BBC World Service

Published 3 minutes ago

Reading time: 8 min

In the isolation ward of Nasser Hospital in Gaza, a seriously injured six-year-old girl named Rasil lies in bed and cries.

Rasil is constantly in pain.

She has a severe fracture of her right leg, infected wounds on her legs and arm, and a shrapnel lodged in her brain.

She urgently needs skin grafts to heal the wounds.

But before that, the wounds must begin to heal, and they do not respond to the antibiotics available in Gaza.

This means doctors have no choice but to continually open and clean wounds. They have carried out this procedure more than 20 times.

At her hospital bed, Rasil's father, Mahmoud al-Balawi, leans over and kisses her.

“Don’t cry,” he tells her, but there are tears in his eyes.

On July 30, Rasil was sleeping with her family in the Al-Mawasi camp for displaced Palestinians near Khan Younis when her tent was hit by an Israeli helicopter airstrike, according to witnesses.

Her nine-year-old sister Ratil and 20-year-old cousin were killed. Rasil's mother and brother were seriously injured. The Israel Defense Forces says it has no evidence of a strike at the time or place indicated.

Rasil has been in Nasser Hospital for two months, but multidrug-resistant bacteria has been found in her wounds, said Awni al-Jaafaravi, a doctor with the charity Doctors Without Borders who is treating her.

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) occurs when bacteria, viruses, fungi and parasites mutate over time and no longer respond to the antibiotics intended to kill them.

The World Health Organization considers it one of the main threats to public health worldwide.

Antibiotic-resistant infections are more difficult and expensive to treat; they can lead to serious illness, sepsis and even death.

“The girl will have to stay in hospital longer and will therefore be at greater risk of infection, which will further complicate her recovery process,” says Dr al-Jaafarawi.

But it’s not just Rasil’s wounds that can’t be treated with antibiotics.

Dr. al-Jaarawy notes that he sees high rates of antibiotic-resistant infections in Gaza hospitals.

“Currently, in many cases, we try to quarantine patients because the bacteria they are infected with can have a long-term impact on the health care facility and this requires special measures,” he says.

New research provided to the BBC World Service confirms the situation observed by Dr al-Jaaarawy in hospitals. It indicates widespread bacterial resistance to the main antibiotics available in Gaza.

The researchers say their 10-year study, which ran from 2015 to 2025 and was based on nearly 80,000 bacterial samples collected from 11 hospitals, is the largest analysis of antimicrobial resistance ever conducted in Gaza.

The study, conducted by Gaza scientists with support from the Fleming Initiative, an interdisciplinary team of researchers at Imperial College London and the American University of Beirut, has not yet been peer-reviewed and its findings are preliminary.

The study authors note that the situation in Gaza creates ideal conditions for the transmission of infections.

“During conflict, water and sanitation systems are often destroyed, and this is extremely important for the population in terms of preventing infections and preventing the transmission of these resistant bacteria,” says Dr. Aula Abbara from the Fleming Initiative. “The consequences for patients are serious. For example, in patients with infections that would normally be treatable, the infections may worsen and become untreatable. In severe cases, it can lead to sepsis and even death.”

One of the consequences for the wounded in Gaza is an increase in the number of people requiring amputation when the infection spreads to the bones.

“In the coming years, we will see the number of amputations increase every day, even if the war stops,” says Dr. al-Jaafarawi. He notes that he continues to receive people wounded in Israeli attacks every week, despite the US-led truce that Israel and Hamas agreed to last October.

Gaza's Hamas-run Health Ministry says 1,421 Palestinians have died since the truce took effect in October 2025.

The IDF disputes the agency's data. She told the BBC she "regrets any harm caused to civilians and is taking steps to minimize it to the greatest extent possible."

The Gaza War began following the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, which killed approximately 1,200 people and took 251 hostage.

More than 74,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since the war began, according to the Hamas-controlled Ministry of Health.

One of the main reasons for the spread of infections is insufficient access to clean water and effective sanitation.

Israel has destroyed or damaged nearly 90% of Gaza's water and sanitation infrastructure, including desalination plants, pipelines and sewage systems, according to the United Nations.

According to a UN report published in July, more than 80% of households in Gaza experience water shortages, and up to 70% of households cannot afford even the absolute minimum UN recommendation of six liters of water per person per day for drinking and cooking.

Israel's Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (Cogat), which is responsible for managing the borders of the Gaza Strip, disputes these figures, telling the BBC that the amount of water being supplied to Gaza exceeds the humanitarian threshold set by the UN.

Some local standpipes remain, but most Gazans must collect their water from distribution points.

Salem Abu Nakhla, 42, is one of those who have to fetch an adequate supply of water every day.

He used to have a supermarket and a butcher shop, but his house was bombed. He, his wife and three children were forced to leave their homes six times and now live in the Al-Mawasi camp.

Salem has to walk about a kilometer to get water, which is difficult for him, as he suffered a back injury as a result of an accident involving an aid truck.

He says he sometimes witnesses quarrels and fights at water distribution points as people stand in line and wait for the water tanker to arrive.

Sometimes the tanker never arrives.

Back at camp, he pours water into a container so his wife can wash the dishes.

He tells her, “Enough. We don't have enough water. Today we may not get water and we will have to haul it again.”

Along with damage to the sewage system and a lack of clean water, garbage collection in Gaza has virtually ceased.

As a result, garbage, human waste and pools of contaminated water have piled up next to densely packed tent cities for Gazans forced to flee their homes.

These campgrounds have become a breeding ground for rats and weasels.

Sometimes you can see huge numbers of these animals scurrying around and through the tents in which people live.

According to a survey released in April by the Site Management Cluster, which oversees many of the camps in Gaza and cited by U.N. agencies, rodents or pests are common in 81% of places where displaced families now live, affecting about 1.45 million people.

There have been many recorded cases of rats or weasels biting people while sleeping.

Such attacks can not only lead to infection, but also serious injury.

Basel al-Dahnoun had to have his right leg amputated below the knee after he was attacked by weasels in his sleep one night, says his daughter Rana.

Rana, 14, says she woke up one night to find the mats they were sleeping on covered in blood and her father badly injured.

She urgently took him to the hospital, but due to a lack of medical supplies, they could neither treat nor even bandage the wound.

Aid organizations and medical staff across the Gaza Strip have told the BBC there are serious shortages of essential medicines and equipment.

As a result, doctors had to amputate Basel’s leg just below the knee. Rana hopes her father, who is in his 60s and suffers from other health problems, can recover.

“May God help him get better,” she says.

Israeli body Cogat says it allows the import of medicines, including antibiotics, into Gaza without restrictions.

At the Nasser Hospital, Rasil's condition is extremely serious.

Doctors say they cannot yet safely remove the pieces from her brain. Rasil can't walk and has started having seizures.

For Rasil's father, the most important thing is the survival of his daughter.

“I fear for my daughter if she stays here in Gaza,” Mahmoud says. “If she stays here, she might die.”

Some 5,600 children are currently awaiting medical evacuation for treatment outside Gaza, according to the Hamas-controlled Ministry of Health.

This requires a referral from the Ministry of Health, the consent of the host country and permission from Israeli security services.

However, there is good news for Rasil.

After waiting several weeks for approval from Israeli authorities, she and her father were granted permission to travel to Egypt with the support of the World Health Organization in late September for emergency treatment.

Her father says she was taken to a hospital outside Cairo but is now awaiting transfer to a better-equipped hospital in the capital.

He hopes that Rasil will now be able to get the treatment she needs.

While staying at the Nasser Hospital, her cousin Rasil brought her a doll. Rasil named her Ratil in honor of her sister.

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