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, describing a 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 worsening sanitary conditions.
Ms Al Jamla rushed her son to hospital in the middle of the night after discovering the injuries. Doctors said Adam needed close monitoring owing to the size of the wound caused by the rat bite. “His body cannot handle something like this,” she said.
Since then, sleep has become impossible for Ms Al Jamla 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.”
Worsening situation
Municipal authorities say the situation is rapidly deteriorating. “The Gaza Strip is suffering greatly from the spread of rodents and insects,” Hosni Mhanna, spokesman for Gaza Municipality, told The National.
Rats are 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. He referred to the accumulation of waste and the destruction of infrastructure as one of the main factors for the proliferation.
For many people in Gaza, the dangers from rodents is now part of their daily lives. Enshirah Hajjaj, 68, is among those to face the threat, waking 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 added.
Inside the tents, she said, rodents are constant companions. “They damage our food and clothes. We have to throw everything away,” she added, fearing health problems linked to contamination and perhaps gangrene.
Doctors said 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."
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 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 shelters made from 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 had a visible and regular rodent and pest presence.
The report also stated that skin diseases are widespread in almost half of the sites and more than 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 military have further exacerbated the crisis. Municipal teams have issued urgent appeals for international assistance, warning that without intervention, the situation could spiral into a health crisis across the enclave. “These tents cannot protect people from heat, cold, nor rodents,” the Gaza Municipality spokesman stressed.
For families such as Ms Al Jamla's, the crisis has become one more she has to face. What began as a struggle for shelter has turned into a fight against an enemy she cannot see or feel, but that she suffers the consequences of on her flesh.
In Gaza today, the boundary between humanitarian crises and public health disasters 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 disease.
