Extreme rodent infestation in Gaza putting millions at risk
4 June 2026
Israel’s deliberate devastation of the Gaza Strip’s built environment, including water and sanitation infrastructure, has forced millions into inhumane living conditions. One result is a severe health and sanitation crisis that will affect the lives of Gazans for many years to come, even if immediate rehabilitation steps are taken now. Over the past few months, an extreme outbreak of rats and pests has been documented in displacement camps. More than 80% of the displacement compounds examined by Save the Children during April 2026 were regularly infested by rats and pests – such as fleas and ticks – both within tents and outside. Given the massive destruction of infrastructure in the Strip and the severe shortage of pesticides, the infestation is expected to continue spreading, with no effective response in sight.
According to reports in recent months by UNRWA medical monitoring teams and personal accounts from people in Gaza, rats invade tents, bite children and adults in their sleep, consume food stocks and damage clothes, blankets, mattresses and the meager belongings of displaced people after two and a half years of genocide. Parents describe fearing sleep in case their children are attacked by rats during the night.
The infestation is also exposing the displaced persons to the spread of rodent-borne diseases such as leptospirosis (rat fever). Infections and diseases are rife in the crowded camps due to poor sanitation: garbage overflow, drainage channels between tents and cesspits with no sewage infrastructure. Due to Israel’s systematic destruction of the healthcare system and the extreme shortage of hygiene products, diseases and injuries that could easily by prevented or treated in normal conditions become life-threatening.
In testimonies given to B’Tselem field researchers in the Gaza Strip Muhammad Sabah, Olfat al-Kurd and Khaled al-‘Azayzeh, three Gaza residents described, among other things, the horrifying sanitation conditions in the displacement camps and the infestation of pests and rodents threatening them and their children:
Rana Qarmut, a 22-year-old resident of Jabalya Refugee Camp, in a testimony she gave on 18 May 2026:
[...] The war is over only on paper. Our suffering never stopped. Even in Halawa camp we’re not safe from daily gunfire from snipers and military cranes aimed at us.
Apart from the hunger, what’s also killing us is the pests and insects infesting the displacement camps. The tents are full of rats, worms and insects living among the rubble, the sand and the piles of trash. At night, the rats come into the tent and eat whatever they find. They ate the little food and flour we had, and we couldn’t even protect it. We tried setting traps, but their numbers kept growing and they moved between the tents.
I live in real fear for my little girl. I’m afraid the rats will go near her while she sleeps. I can’t fall asleep. I stay awake almost all night watching over her, because of the rats and the diseases they spread. They even gnaw at the tent itself and eat it, while the military refuses to allow in more tents, tarps, and other basic equipment for daily living.
About two weeks ago, I nodded off and was woken by my daughter’s hysterical crying. When I picked her up, I discovered rats had gnawed at her foot while she slept. I was so afraid, I felt my soul leave my body. I started screaming and crying, grabbed her and ran together with my husband between medical service points to find medicine or disinfectants against infection and poisoning. But the military doesn’t even allow medicine and disinfectants into Gaza. I was left crying, with my daughter in my arms, terrified disease would spread through her tiny body while I stood there helpless and unable to save her.
Since that day I’ve lived in constant terror. Not a single night passes without crying and fear. I’m afraid the rats will come back and eat my daughter’s face or body while she sleeps. I’m afraid to fall asleep and panic when anything moves in the tent. My husband is helpless in this cruel reality. He can’t provide us with a home, food or even a new tent to protect us.
Right now there are no solutions and we are suffering from the spread of rats, rodents and disease in the camp. I’m treating my daughter’s injury as best I can, with primitive means, and fighting the diseases all around us that are a danger to her and all of us. We’re living in fear, humiliation and helplessness in a torn tent, between hunger and blockade.
There is more to this war than bombing and shelling. It’s a war of starvation, humiliation and exposing our children’s bodies to predatory rodents and disease. All we can do is pray that my little girl survives the slow death we’re going through. [...]
Fatimah al-Kurd, 35, a divorced mother of four from Jabalya, related in a testimony she gave on 14 May 2026:
[...] The bombings continue everywhere, you can’t escape the sound, and there are dead and wounded people everywhere. My family’s home in Jabalya was bombed to the ground and the whole area we lived in has been declared a closed military zone. I realized we would continue living in a tent.
Then winter came, which was a disaster for us. Every time it rained our tent flooded, and I could do nothing. We’ve been living in this tent for nine months, and the suffering continues.
But the worst thing now is the attacks by rodents. You can’t imagine how many rats, mice and other rodents are in the tents. They come day and night, in huge numbers and all sizes. I stay awake all night, trying to chase them or kill them in the tent.
Two days ago, I was woken by my daughter Sidra screaming that a mouse had bitten her toes. She was screaming and sobbing with fear.
My daughter Qamar, who is in the 12th grade, is also suffering a lot from this situation. Every day we shift her books and notebooks from place to place, so the rats won’t eat them. They dig under the sides of the tent and hide there, and then come into the tent. I’m afraid they’ll even gnaw through the tent itself, because it’s made of nylon and tarps.
At night we’re literally surrounded by swarms of rodents. We’ve heard estimates that there are about four million rats in the Gaza Strip by now – more than the number of people. Nothing stops them from entering our tent. Sometimes I find them gnawing on bread or other food we have, and I immediately throw it away so we don’t catch a disease.
Honestly, I don’t know how to get rid of them. I tried scattering poison, but it didn’t help. I feel they are only multiplying, because of the piles of garbage around us, the sewage water, and the scraps of food that people throw right by the tents.
We’re living in a massive environmental disaster, and we have no idea how to deal with it. The authorities here have no plan to deal with the rodents endangering our lives every day.
About a week ago, at night, I heard noises under the tent tarp. I turned my phone flashlight on, lifted the tarp and saw a huge rat the size of a cat. I turned off the light and ran away screaming. The children and I were afraid to go back into the tent. The rats are enormous and we’re afraid they will attack us.
I feel that the rodents are simply living with us and we can’t get rid of them. On top of that, snakes have also started appearing. That’s another disaster with no solution.
Now we’re at the start of summer. The tent is already a furnace, with flies and mosquitoes everywhere. At night we get bitten by unusually large mosquitoes in huge numbers. In the morning, we wake up at six o’clock from fly bites, which also swarm here in huge numbers. The bites cause us allergic reactions and swelling.
I do everything I can 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 shelter for rodents and insects. I hate it, but we have nowhere else to go. [...]
Muhammad ‘Ubeid, 41, a father of five from of a-Shuja’iyah neighborhood in Gaza City, said in a testimony he gave on 13 May 2026:
[...] One night, we were asleep in the tent and woke up because my daughter Dima was screaming. At first I thought she’d been shot, but it turned out she woke up terrified after a mouse climbed over her face. That night she couldn’t get back to sleep, she was so afraid the rats would come back.
Even though we try to clean the tent every day, the pests are spreading because we have no closed space to store food like in a kitchen. We keep food, grains and even our clothes in cardboard boxes, and the pests are attracted by the smell of the food. We have often found our clothes or bags with grains and food destroyed by rats.
Another danger is the sewage pits, because most of the families are poor and can’t afford to cover them with metal sheets. One day, my son Sanad was crawling outside the tent and almost fell into a sewage pit, and we grabbed him just in time.
The rodents are also spreading because the tents are on muddy ground and not concrete surfaces, so they dig tunnels underneath and live in them.
The problem is worse in summer, when the rats and mice spread in large numbers throughout the camp. Most of the displaced families can’t afford ordinary solutions such as poison or traps.
For example, a glue trap for rats currently costs 20 shekels [≈ USD 5], and rat poison costs around 50 shekels [≈ USD 13]. As an unemployed father, I cannot afford it. If I have 20 shekels, my priority is to buy food, medicine or other necessities for my children.
Sometimes aid organizations hold workshops for women about storing food and tent hygiene, but none of that helps reduce the spread of rodents.
In the first months of the war, the number of mice and rats was relatively small. But now, the massive amount of ruined homes has become an ideal environment for them to reproduce. [...]