After Israeli Forces and Extreme Weather, Gaza Refugees Now Face Rats Carrying Disease

JAKARTA - Residents of the Gaza Strip, Palestine who are displaced are now facing another threat that is no less terrible, after the Israeli army and extreme weather, namely disease-carrying rats.

Samah al-Dabhla whose children are displaced in emergency tents next to piles of rubble, now has to face a threat that has never been experienced before the war, the presence of rats that carry diseases.

Samah always watches over her children, three-year-old Mayaseen and four-year-old Asaad, spending most of her days cleaning in a desperate bid to drive away the rats, but in vain.

A week ago, he woke up in the middle of the night as Mayaseen screamed, "Thief, thief." At first, Samah didn't understand what was going on, but when he held his daughter, he saw blood on her hand.

"His father turned on the flashlight, and we saw the rat running into the tent, which was very big, like a rabbit," Samah said, quoted by Al Jazeera (24/4).

Mayaseen's parents realized the rat had attacked her and bitten her hand, causing visible bleeding on her body and staining her bed with blood.

The local medical clinic was unable to treat Mayaseen, who was then taken to al-Shifa Hospital in the center of Gaza City. Despite receiving treatment, the child continued to be terrified by what had happened.

"He became very scared," Samah said.

"Every night he wants to sleep in my arms. He wakes up in fear, afraid to hear the sound of rats near us," said Samah, who has trouble sleeping, afraid that the incident will happen again.

Samah added that he believed the rats were becoming more aggressive because they "are used to eating human bodies under the ruins". It is known that more than 72,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel's genocidal war in Gaza.

"The situation is very scary, rats and mice are everywhere," Samah said, pointing to a pile of ruins in front of him filled with holes that the rodents used as shelter.

"Every day, when night falls, I feel scared because the rats spread in a terrible way," he explained.

"Yesterday, I went back to my tent at night and found them all over the hill, a horrible sight that no human can imagine," he said.

Samah, like hundreds of thousands of people in Gaza, lives in tents, forced to leave their homes by Israeli attacks and forced evacuation orders.

With no signs of reconstruction on the horizon, even though a ceasefire began in October, they have to survive in these conditions.

That means trying to find clean water, finding ways to get electricity and internet, finding food, and dealing with disease-carrying pests such as rats, problems that get worse as summer approaches.

Samah, who fled Beit Lahiya in northern Gaza, has tried to buy rat poison, but says the price is too high, and they barely have enough money to feed his family.

Before the war, her husband worked as a strawberry farmer, and their financial situation was relatively stable. Now, the family's income has stopped completely, and securing food is the top priority.

The problem is, whatever food he gets for his family can attract more rats.

"Many times I brought food from the communal kitchen, closed it, and then came back after a while to find rat droppings on it," said Samah.

"I have to throw everything away, they always ruin our flour sacks," he explained.

They also damaged clothes, personal belongings, and even tents.

"Rats ate our clothes and bags, the edges of our tents, everything," he added.

Even though he continues to try to maintain cleanliness, Samah said the rats keep coming. He emphasized, this problem is general and not limited to his tent.

He also added that individual efforts by people around them to clean up debris sometimes led to more rats spreading to the surrounding area.

"Everyone around me is suffering, neighbors, relatives, everyone complains because of the rats. Every time they clean a place, the rats come to us. This problem requires an organized official effort to control them," said Samah.

The arrival of summer is expected to worsen this crisis, along with the spread of insects and mosquitoes.

Meanwhile, Dr. Ayman Abu Rahma, director of preventive medicine at the Ministry of Health, described Gaza as a "health hazard environment" that has led to an unprecedented spread of rats.

He linked this to three main reasons: the accumulation of garbage, the destruction of waste disposal infrastructure, and the presence of debris and rotting bodies underneath.

Abu Rahma explained that there had been an increase in emergency cases and primary care due to bites, especially among children and the elderly. Diabetic patients are very vulnerable, because they may not feel the bite, which causes serious complications.

He added that rats also transmit diseases through urine and feces, causing fever and other symptoms.

Separately, Gaza City officials said the situation was exacerbated by Israel's ban on importing pest control materials, including poisons previously used to control rats, and efforts to find alternatives have not been successful.

The problem of waste management is also getting worse, with Gaza City's main landfill containing about 300,000 cubic meters (10.5 million cubic feet) of garbage, creating a breeding ground for rats in densely populated areas.

Officials are exploring the possibility of turning garbage into organic fertilizer, but solutions remain limited as most of the equipment the city needs for the project was destroyed by the war.

With little solution to this problem, Palestinian residents in Gaza are suffering more. For example, as experienced by Basel al-Dahnoun, where the bite of a rat adds to his suffering from various diseases previously.

The 47-year-old said he was on his way home from a dialysis session at the hospital when he fell asleep due to exhaustion.

He then woke up feeling a slight sting on his leg. His wife saw a rat in their tent, turned on the electric flashlight, and told him that his leg was bleeding profusely.

"I looked at my legs, and the mattress and mat were full of blood, then my wife turned around and saw the rat and chased it away. That's when I realized the rat had bitten my leg," said Basel sitting in his wheelchair inside the tent.

"Because of my disease, I gradually lost sensation in my limbs, which is why I didn't feel the rat bite," he added.

Basel, who suffered from kidney failure, diabetes, and severe vision problems that left him barely able to see, was immediately taken to hospital, where he was treated.

In the camp where Basel lives, there is no infrastructure, and there is no separation between sleeping, cooking, waste disposal, or garbage disposal areas. This environment allows rats to breed.

"I want anyone to come and record here at night. There are so many, not just one or two rats. We try to fight them with sticks and brooms, but there is no real poison or solution," he explained.

"I'm mentally exhausted, really exhausted," continued Basel.

"I don't ask for money, nothing. I just want to live in stability in a clean place. This is not life," he hoped.