8-year-old Gaza girl loses her hair due to severe mental stress of Israeli attacks

An eight-year-old Palestinian girl, Sama Tabil, experienced severe hair loss due to the intense trauma and constant stress after she was displaced during the ongoing Israeli military offensive on the Gaza Strip.

Sama's ordeal underscores the profound psychological impact of Israel’s military onslaught on the children of Gaza.

"My hair used to be beautiful and long. I loved brushing it every day, especially before going to school. I would style it in many pretty ways and was [be] known as the best in my class,”  Sama recalled. 

Sama was asleep when an Israeli airstrike hit her camp in Rafah and she woke up to the sounds of explosions and gunfire.

Horrified and deeply disturbed by the attacks, the stress took a toll on her health and she began losing her hair in large amounts.

"She was terrified by the sight of dead bodies and debris around her. The constant fear and chaos were overwhelming," her mother told Al Jazeera. 

"There was no stability, no peace, no security. This constant fear and random shelling were the main causes of her hair loss. Sama has been deprived of her childhood," she added.

The stress and trauma have led to almost complete baldness for Sama, with only a few strands of hair remaining. Already distressed by her hair loss, she is also teased by other children due to her baldness in the Khan Younis camp where she currently resides.

"In the camp, the other girls keep teasing me, calling me names like 'bald' and 'cancer patient'. They keep saying these things to me, and it really hurts," Sama said.

As her ninth birthday approaches, she wishes for her hair to grow back before the special day.

She is unable to receive medical treatment for her condition due to severe shortages of medicines in Gaza.

According to Jason Lee, Save the Children's Country Director for the occupied Palestinian territory, "Children in Gaza were already living with unimaginable distress following 16 years of blockade and successive escalations in violence. This war and the physical and mental scars it is leaving on children is further eroding their resilience.”