Gaza, June 4, 2026.
Israel's deliberate destruction of the built environment of the Gaza Strip, including its water and sewage systems, has forced millions of people into inhumane living conditions. One consequence of this is a severe health and hygiene crisis that will affect the lives of Gazans for years to come, even if immediate recovery efforts begin. In recent months, a dramatic increase in rats and other vermin has been documented in the refugee camps. The Save the Children More than 80% of the refugee camps surveyed by the UN in April 2026 were regularly infested with rats and other pests, such as fleas and ticks, both inside and outside the tents. Given the vast destruction of the area’s infrastructure and the severe shortage of insecticides, the infestation is expected to continue to spread, and an effective response is elusive.
Reports from UNRWA medical monitoring teams in recent months and personal accounts from Gaza residents show that rats are entering tents, biting children and adults in their sleep, consuming food supplies, and damaging clothes, blankets, mattresses, and the few possessions of displaced people after two and a half years of genocide. Parents say they are afraid to sleep for fear that their children will be attacked by rats at night.
The infection also exposes displaced people to diseases spread by rodents, such as leptospirosis (rat fever). Infections are rampant in the overcrowded camps due to poor hygiene conditions: overflowing garbage, sewers and septic tanks between tents, and no sewage infrastructure. Due to Israel’s systematic destruction of the health system and the extreme shortage of hygiene products, diseases and injuries that would normally be easy to prevent or treat are now becoming life-threatening.
A B’Tselem In statements given to researchers by a human rights organization, three Gaza residents – Muhammad Sabah, Olfat al-Kurd and Khaled al-'Azayzeh – described, among other things, the terrible sanitary conditions in the refugee camps and the invasion of pests and rodents that preyed on them and their children:
Rana Qarmut, 22-year-old resident of Jabaliya refugee camp (May 18, 2026):
„[…] The war only ended on paper. Our suffering never ended. Even in Halawa camp, we are not safe from the daily gunfire from snipers and military cranes that are aimed at us.
Apart from hunger, what is killing us is the vermin and insects that have invaded the refugee camps. The tents are full of rats, worms and insects that live among the rubble, sand and piles of garbage. At night, the rats come into the tents and eat everything they can find. They ate our little food and flour, and we couldn't even protect them. We tried setting traps, but their numbers only increased and they wandered between the tents.
I live in real fear for my little girl. I am afraid that the rats will come near her while she is sleeping. I cannot sleep. I stay awake almost all night watching over her, because of the rats and the diseases they spread. They even chew and eat the tent, while the military refuses to allow more tents, tarpaulins and other basic equipment for daily life.
About two weeks ago, I was taking a nap and woke up to find my daughter crying hysterically. When I picked her up, I discovered that rats had chewed her leg while she was sleeping. I was so scared, I felt like my soul was leaving my body. I started screaming and crying, picked her up, and my husband and I ran from one medical point to another to find medicine or disinfectant for the infection and poisoning. But the military won’t even allow medicine or disinfectant into Gaza. I stayed there crying, holding my daughter in my arms, terrified that the disease would spread through her tiny body, while I stood helpless, unable to save her.
Since then, I have lived in constant fear. Not a single night goes by without crying and fear. I am afraid that the rats will come back and eat my daughter's face or body while she sleeps. I am afraid to fall asleep and I panic if anything moves in the tent. My husband is helpless in this cruel reality. He cannot give us a home, food, or even a new tent to protect us.
There are currently no solutions and we are suffering from the rats, rodents and diseases that have spread throughout the camp. I am treating my daughter's injury as best I can, with rudimentary means, and fighting the diseases around us that pose a threat to her and all of us. We live in fear, humiliation and helplessness in a torn tent, between hunger and blockade.
This war is about more than bombing and shelling. It is a war of starvation, humiliation, and exposing our children’s bodies to predatory rodents and disease. We can only pray that my little girl survives the slow death we are going through. […]”
Fatimah al-Kurd, 35, divorced mother of four from Jabaliya (May 14, 2026):
„[…] The bombings continue everywhere, you can’t escape the sound, and there are dead and wounded everywhere. My family’s house in Jabalia was razed to the ground by bombs, and the entire area where we lived was declared a closed military zone. I realized that we would have to continue living in tents.
Then came the winter, which was a disaster for us. Every time it rained, our tent flooded and I couldn't do anything. We have been living in this tent for nine months and the suffering continues.
But the worst thing now is the rodent infestation. You can't imagine how many rats, mice and other rodents are in the tents. They come day and night, in huge numbers and of all sizes. I'm awake all night, trying to chase or kill them in the tent.
Two days ago I woke up to find my daughter Sidra screaming because a mouse had bitten her toe. She was screaming and sobbing in fear.
My daughter, Qamar, who is a high school senior, also suffers a lot from this situation. Every day we pack her books and notebooks from one place to another so that the rats don't eat them. They dig under the sides of the tent, hide there, and then come into the tent. I'm afraid they'll even chew the tent itself, because it's made of nylon and tarpaulin.
At night, we are literally surrounded by swarms of rodents. We have heard estimates that there may be as many as four million rats in the Gaza Strip – more than there are people. Nothing stops them from coming into our tent. Sometimes I catch them gnawing on bread or other food and I immediately throw them away so we don’t catch any disease.
I honestly don't know how to get rid of them. I tried spraying poison, but it didn't help. I feel like they're just multiplying because of the piles of garbage around us, the sewage, and the food scraps that people throw right next to the tents.
We are living in a huge environmental disaster and we have no idea how to deal with it. The authorities here have no plan to deal with the rodents that threaten our daily lives.
About a week ago, at night, I heard noises under the tarp of my tent. I turned on my phone's flashlight, lifted the tarp, and saw a huge rat the size of a cat. I turned off the light and ran away screaming. The kids and I were afraid to go back to the tent. The rats are huge, and we were afraid they would attack us.
I feel like the rodents are just living with us and we can't get rid of them. Plus, snakes have started showing up. This is another disaster that has no solution.
It's early summer now. The tent is already a furnace, with flies and mosquitoes everywhere. At night we are bitten by an unusually large army of mosquitoes. At six in the morning we wake up from the bites of flies, which are also swarming here in huge numbers. The bites cause allergic reactions and swelling.
I do my best to keep the tent clean, but the flies and mosquitoes never leave us, day and night.
Our tent is like a grave. It’s basically a haven for rodents and insects. I hate it, but we have nowhere else to go. […]”
Muhammad 'Ubeid, 41 years old, father of five, from the a-Shuja'iyah neighborhood of Gaza City (May 13, 2026):
„[…] One night we were sleeping in the tent and woke up to my daughter Dima screaming. At first I thought she had been shot, but it turned out she had woken up in terror after a mouse ran across her face. That night she couldn’t go back to sleep, she was so afraid that the rats would come back.
Although we try to clean the tent every day, pests spread because we don't have a closed place to store food like in a kitchen. We keep our food, grain, and even our clothes in cardboard boxes, and pests are attracted to the smell of food. We often found our clothes or our bags full of grain and food being destroyed by rats.
Another danger is cesspools because most families are poor and cannot afford to cover them with metal sheets. One day my son Sanad was climbing in front of the tent and almost fell into a cesspool, we caught him at the last moment.
Rodents also spread because the tents are on muddy ground, not concrete, so they dig tunnels underneath and live in them.
The problem is worse in the summer, when rats and mice proliferate in large numbers in the camp. Most displaced families cannot afford ordinary solutions such as poison or traps.
For example, a glue rat trap currently costs 20 shekels [≈ $5], and rat poison costs about 50 shekels [≈ $13]. As an unemployed father, I can't afford that. If I have 20 shekels, my priority is to buy food, medicine, or other essentials for my children.
Sometimes aid agencies hold workshops for women on food storage and tent hygiene, but nothing helps reduce the rodent infestation.
In the first months of the war, the number of mice and rats was relatively small. But now the vast amount of ruined houses became an ideal environment for them to breed. […]”
