Rats and parasites are spreading through Gaza’s tent camps for displaced Palestinians, biting children’s fingers and toes as they sleep, gnawing through people’s few remaining treasured possessions, and spreading disease.

Some half a year into a US-brokered truce, most of Gaza’s more than 2 million people are still displaced as a result of the preceding two-year war, and many now live in bombed-out homes and makeshift tents pitched on open ground, roadsides, or atop the ruins of destroyed buildings.

Just 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 have been sheltering.

She and her mother showed Reuters holes the rodents had eaten through her gown, a traditional burgundy embroidered dress that is customary in Palestinian weddings.

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

A rat bit the hand and toes of Khalil Al-Mashharawi’s 3-year-old son several weeks ago, he said. Last Friday, he himself was bitten.

????HORRIBLE: Massive Rodent Infestation in Displaced Families’ Tents in Gaza A severe and alarming spread of large rats is reported inside the tents of displaced families in Gaza, amid collapsing living conditions, overflowing waste, and the absence of basic infrastructure. pic.twitter.com/fMt6jznuvE Advertisement if(typeof rgb_remove_toi_dfp_banner != "function" || !rgb_remove_toi_dfp_banner("#Article_Incontent1")){ window.tude = window.tude || { cmd: [] }; tude.cmd.push(function() { if(navigator.userAgent.indexOf("rgbmedia-app") > -1){ tude.setDeviceType("mobile"); } tude.refreshAdsViaDivMappings([ { divId: 'Article_Incontent1', baseDivId: 'Article_Incontent1', } ]); }); } — Gaza Notifications (@gazanotice) April 28, 2026

????HORRIBLE: Massive Rodent Infestation in Displaced Families’ Tents in Gaza

A severe and alarming spread of large rats is reported inside the tents of displaced families in Gaza, amid collapsing living conditions, overflowing waste, and the absence of basic infrastructure. pic.twitter.com/fMt6jznuvE

— Gaza Notifications (@gazanotice) April 28, 2026

He said he and his wife now sleep in shifts to protect their children and one another from an infestation they are unable to control or defend themselves against, with rodent traps largely ineffective in Gaza’s ruined homes and tent encampments.

“They strike in our sleep,” said Al-Mashharawi, 26, who lives with his family in the ruins of their house in the Tuffah neighbourhood in northern Gaza.

“They may disappear for a day or two before they strike again, [forcing] their way under the tiles of the floor of the house.”

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.

Israel generally restricts the entry to Gaza of items that it says can have dual military or civilian use.

As part of what it said was an effort with “all actors and international partners” to address the sanitation problem, COGAT, the Israeli military agency that controls access to Gaza, said that, in recent weeks, it has facilitated the transfer of about 90 tons of pest control materials and over 1,000 mousetraps into the enclave.

“Every day, hospitals record cases of........

© The Times of Israel