In the middle of the night in Gaza city, a woman was woken by the sound of her baby screaming.
There was no electricity – only the faint light of a mobile phone pierced the darkness, illuminating a terrifying scene. Blood covered the face of her month-old son.
“My baby, Adam, had been bitten while he was sleeping,” Yasmin Al Jamla told The National about the moment that has come to symbolise a growing crisis inside Gaza’s displacement camps.
For thousands of displaced families across Gaza, air strikes are not the only dangers of the Israeli war.
Instead, a quieter but increasingly alarming threat is spreading. Rodents, insects, and the diseases they carry, are thriving in overcrowded camps filled with rubbish, rubble, and deteriorating sanitary conditions.
Yasmin rushed her son to hospital in the middle of the night after discovering the injuries.
Doctors said that Adam needed close monitoring, as the wound caused by the rat bite was large.
“His body cannot handle something like this,” she said with a sigh.
Since then, sleep has become impossible for Yasmin and her three children.
“I keep him [Adam] in my arms all night,” she said. “I stay awake watching him because there is no other way to protect him.”
A worsening situation
Municipal authorities say the situation is rapidly worsening.
“The Gaza Strip is suffering greatly from the spread of rodents and insects,” Hosni Mhanna, spokesman for Gaza Municipality, told The National.
Rats are very common, but the proliferation of certain flies and mosquitoes are also a big risk to the population.
With the start of summer, rising temperatures are compounding the problem, and local authorities lack the means to respond.
“We do not have the capacity to control the situation,” said Mr Mhanna, citing the accumulation of waste and the destruction of infrastructure as one of the main factors for the proliferation.
For many inhabitants of Gaza, the danger of rodents is now part of their daily lives.
Enshirah Hajjaj, 68, discovered this when she woke up to find rats had bitten her foot as she was asleep.
She suffers from diabetic neuropathy and did not feel the attack. The sickness damages some nerves in the body, making some limbs completely desensitised.
“I only noticed when I saw the blood,” she said.
Doctors told her that, at her age and with her condition, even a small wound could lead to serious complications.
“The wound may not heal … Ever,” she said, worried.
Inside the tents where people live, she added, rodents are constant companions.
“They damage our food and clothes. We have to throw everything away,” she said, fearing health problems linked to contamination and perhaps gangrene.
Doctors said that the dangers go far beyond physical injuries.
“The spread of rodents and insects is extremely dangerous,” said Dr Shafiq Al Khatib, a dermatology consultant working in Gaza’s hospitals.
“Frequent contact of insects and rodents with food and drink has harmful effects on the human digestive system, causing diarrhoea,” he added.
In some cases, the infections can “lead to diseases such as West Nile fever, malaria, and certain skin ulcers that may result in illnesses affecting the internal organs”.
Dr Al Khatib said that exposure to contaminated environments can lead to respiratory infections, digestive illnesses, and skin conditions.
Rodents can also transmit life-threatening diseases, including meningitis and plague, while insects can spread infections that affect internal organs.
“Even under normal conditions, these diseases are difficult to treat,” Dr Al Khatib said. “In Gaza’s current situation, it is much worse.”
Hospitals are already seeing an increase in patients suffering from bites, infections, and complications linked to poor sanitation.
Children and the elderly are the most at risk when complications develop.
In displacement camp homes made of worn nylon and fabric, families have little protection against the elements, or the pests that thrive around them.
A UN report published on April 10 said there were “alarming rates of ectoparasitic, lice, scabies, rat and other pest infestations in displacement sites”. In 1,600 displacement sites surveyed, 80 per cent have a visible and regular rodent and pest presence.
The report also states that skin diseases are widespread in almost half of the sites, and over 40 alerts from local partners about rodent infestations were sent to the UN, with requests for hygiene items and pest control support.
Restrictions on the entry of pest control supplies from the Israeli army have further aggravated the crisis.
Municipal teams have issued urgent appeals for international assistance, warning that without intervention, the situation could spiral into a health crisis all over the displacement camps in the strip.
“These tents cannot protect people from heat, cold, nor rodents,” the spokesperson of the Gaza Municipality stressed.
For families like Yasmin’s, the crisis has become one more she has to counter.
What began as a struggle for shelter has turned into a fight against an enemy she cannot see or feel, but suffers the consequences of on her flesh.
In Gaza today, the boundary between humanitarian crisis and public health disaster is increasingly blurred, and the situation is getting worse.
The spread of rodents and insects is not only a symptom of wider collapse, it is a growing emergency in its own right.
Without urgent intervention, Dr Al Khatib said, “the consequences could escalate rapidly,” exhausting the population more, and spreading diseases.
