Struggle and Solidarity: Writing Toward Palestinian Liberation

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In Gaza, displaced families are locked in a relentless battle. Since February 2026, a new terror has emerged: Predatory rodents are shredding the tents that residents spent years pleading for at aid organizations and have also begun attacking and biting humans. This has created a state of panic across the camps. Parents now take shifts through the night, standing guard to protect their sleeping children from these aggressive creatures. As the displaced spend their third consecutive year living atop rubble, amid mounting waste and overflowing sewage systems, the camps seem to be the perfect breeding ground for this crisis.

Gaza is no longer merely heading toward an environmental and humanitarian catastrophe; it is living in the very heart of it. The specter of leptospirosis has become a grim reality, a plague that Dr. Bassam Zaqout, director of medical relief in Gaza, had previously warned would emerge. Zaqout clarified that this disease is transmitted through the urine of rats and other rodents, which are now swarming the camps. This outbreak arrives amid brutal living conditions: suffocating overcrowding, a dire lack of clean water, and the total collapse of basic health infrastructure — all of which have left the population’s health dangerously fragile in the face of infectious diseases.

Since the ceasefire agreement in October 2025, the suffering of Gazans has been pushed to the margins of global consciousness. There has been little relief from this human-made crisis in Gaza, as the displaced living in tents, forced into a reality they couldn’t have imagined in their darkest nightmares before October 7. To report on the visceral reality of this forgotten crisis and the emerging health threats, I went to the legislative camp in western Gaza City. It sits atop the ruins of the Palestinian Legislative Council building, originally established by the Egyptian government in 1962.

While walking through the camp, I met Ahmed Mohammed Assaliya, 34, a husband and father. He shared a chilling memory from just a few days earlier. “One day, while my wife was at a relative’s wedding, I decided to take a nap,” Assaliya recounted. “I woke up, terrified, to a rat biting my face. Blood was streaming from my nose.” He was standing, putting a finger on his nose to show me the marks of the bite. Assaliya was standing in front of the camp’s communal kitchen, waiting to take his children’s lunch for the day. He described feeling shy and in pain, to the point that at first, he refused to reveal his name. Then, gathering courage, he told me to fight with my words and tell his testimony to the world in hope it brings about a new consciousness.

An even more horrific story came from Dina Mohammed Jendia, 20, who lives in a tent pitched amid the jagged rubble of the legislative council. In a voice trembling with fear, Jendia recounted her encounter with a weasel. “It was a terrifying feeling,” she said. “I woke........

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