Rats bite displaced sleeping children in Gaza camps as sanitation collapses

2 min readUpdated: May 1, 2026 04:19 PM IST

Rats and parasites have become a major problem for displaced Palestinians staying in the tent camps of Gaza, with the rodents biting the children and causing epidemics, which are feared as living conditions get worse, news agency Reuters reported.

More than 2 million people were forced to flee after the war, and huge numbers live in shelters which are overcrowded and without proper sanitation. People say rats come into their tents at night, bite children, and damage properties; some families even stay awake to watch for attacks.

Days before her wedding day, Amani Abu Selmi, displaced with her family in Khan Younis in the south, discovered that rats had gnawed through the garments and bags of her wedding trousseau inside the tattered tent where they had been sheltering.
She and her mother showed Reuters holes the rodents had eaten through her wedding gown.

“All my happiness was ⁠gone, it turned to sadness, turned to heartbreak – that my things are gone, my wedding trousseau is gone,” Abu Selmi, 20, was quoted as saying.

Doctors have warned that such health problems may rise in the future; rodent bites can cause infections and lead to diseases such as rat-bite fever and leptospirosis. Some of the most vulnerable groups are broken down into children and the elderly.

According to the World Health Organisation, the main factors contributing to the infestation are piles of garbage, burst sewage systems, and a lack of clean water, which together have created the perfect environment for pests. Also indirectly, difficulty in pest control comes through the scarcity of pest control resources.

Health officials warned that without making immediate changes in the sanitation and living conditions, the situation may deteriorate further.

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Mohamed Abu Selmia, head of Gaza’s largest hospital, Al-Shifa, said he expects the problem to worsen as summer approaches and amid an Israeli ban on pest control materials such as rat poison.

(With inputs from Reuters)

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