New Delhi, July 11 -- KHAN YOUNIS - In the displacement camp that now occupies the courtyard of a former school on the outskirts of Khan Younis, a doctor from a UNRWA mobile clinic documented eleven new chickenpox cases in a single morning last week. Most of the children were four and five years old. Most had already been screened for malnutrition. Of those with chickenpox, more than half had nutritional deficits that doctors said would directly compromise their capacity to mount an immune response to the virus.

The United Nations announced on Friday that more than 18,000 new cases of chickenpox, ectoparasitic infestation, and impetigo were recorded across Gaza in a single week. The figure, disclosed by UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric and...