A 28-day-old infant was reportedly bitten on the face by a rat while sleeping inside a displacement tent in Gaza City, an incident that captures the scale of a public health crisis spreading through camps where more than a million displaced Palestinians now shelter under canvas with almost no protection from vermin.

The attack on baby Adam Al-Ustaz, reported by the Palestinian news agency WAFA on March 27, happened in the Al-Maqousi area west of Gaza City. His father, Youssef Al-Ustaz, described waking at 1:00 a.m. to piercing screams and finding his son’s face covered in blood, with deep bite marks on his cheek left by a large rat. The infant was rushed to Al-Rantisi Children’s Hospital, where doctors worked to treat the wounds and prevent bacterial infection.

The case is part of a broader rodent infestation crisis that Al Jazeera reported on April 5 is now spreading through Gaza’s displacement camps. Accumulated trash, destroyed sewage infrastructure, and the sheer density of improvised shelters have created conditions in which rat populations are growing rapidly and coming into direct contact with residents who have no means to keep them out.

Destroyed Infrastructure, Defenseless Shelters

The connection between Gaza’s destroyed infrastructure and the rodent problem is straightforward. Almost every sewage treatment plant, waste collection route, and drainage system in the territory has been damaged or rendered inoperable since the war began. Rubble from destroyed buildings sits in enormous piles adjacent to tent camps, providing ideal harborage for rats.

Rats thrive where food waste accumulates and water stagnates. In Gaza’s tent camps, both conditions are constant. Humanitarian aid deliveries generate packaging waste that has nowhere to go. Standing sewage attracts rodents. And the thin canvas walls of displacement tents offer zero barrier to animals looking for food or warmth at night.

The Al-Ustaz family’s situation is representative. Displaced multiple times since their home in the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood was destroyed, they ended up in a tent in the Al-Maqousi area that lacks basic necessities. There are no secure doors. There is no way to seal the shelter from rodents that have become, in Youssef Al-Ustaz’s description, a constant presence in the camps.

The problem is structural, not behavioral. Families sleeping in tents cannot install barriers, purchase traps, or access pest control chemicals. Even if such products were available, the strict blockade on Gaza has prevented far more essential supplies from entering the territory. Medicine, food, and fuel all remain in short supply. Pest control materials do not appear on any priority list.

A Public Health Emergency Beyond Bites

Rat bites on sleeping infants represent the most visible dimension of this crisis, but the public health implications extend much further. Rodents are vectors for a range of serious diseases including leptospirosis, hantavirus, plague, and rat-bite fever. In an environment where clean water is scarce, medical facilities are overwhelmed, and antibiotics are in short supply, even a single rat bite carries significant infection risk.

The bacterial infection risk in Adam Al-Ustaz’s case illustrates the problem. Doctors at Al-Rantisi Children’s Hospital placed the infant under medical observation specifically because rodent-inflicted wounds carry a high probability of secondary infection. For a 28-day-old baby in a medical system operating with minimal supplies, this is a serious threat.

Contamination of food and water supplies by rodent droppings and urine is likely an even larger concern than direct attacks, though it is harder to document. Diarrheal diseases, already widespread in Gaza’s camps, can be traced in part to the same sanitary failures that are driving the rodent population boom.

Almost All of Gaza’s Population Has Been Displaced

The scale of displacement shapes everything about this crisis. Reports indicate that the vast majority of Gaza’s population has been displaced at least once during the conflict. Hundreds of thousands still live in tents and makeshift shelters, according to reporting from Kuwait Times citing AFP. A ceasefire has reportedly been in place since October 2025, but conditions in the camps have not meaningfully improved.

Reports indicate that hundreds of people have been killed since the ceasefire began. Daily dangers from airstrikes and gunfire persist alongside the slower-moving but equally lethal threats posed by disease, contamination, and now rodent infestations.

The density of tent camps creates ideal conditions for infestations to spread rapidly. Rats that establish themselves in rubble piles adjacent to one cluster of tents quickly move to neighboring areas. Without pest control infrastructure or even basic waste removal, there is no mechanism to slow or reverse the spread.

No Clear Path to Resolution

Addressing a rodent infestation of this scale requires waste removal, debris clearance, sewage system repair, and systematic pest control. None of these are possible under current conditions. The blockade restricts building materials. Municipal services have largely ceased to function. International humanitarian organizations are focused on food, water, and medical care, with vector control falling outside their immediate priorities.

The waste management problem is circular. Camps generate waste that cannot be collected because collection infrastructure has been destroyed. The uncollected waste attracts rodents. The rodents create health emergencies that further strain an already collapsing medical system. Each element reinforces the others.

For families like the Al-Ustaz family, the situation reduces to a nightly calculation of risk with no good options. They cannot leave the camps. They cannot secure their tents. They cannot afford even basic deterrents. Each night, they share their thin-walled shelters with animals that have become bolder as their populations grow.

What happened to Adam Al-Ustaz is not an isolated incident. It is a symptom of conditions that are worsening, and for which no intervention is currently planned at a scale that could make a difference. The rats are a consequence of everything else that has broken down in Gaza: the buildings, the pipes, the roads, the institutions, the systems that once kept a dense urban population minimally safe from the oldest threats.

Youssef Al-Ustaz remains at his son’s bedside at Al-Rantisi Children’s Hospital, watching over an infant whose first month of life has included displacement, deprivation, and now a rat attack that left his face scarred. The family will eventually return to their tent. The rats will still be there.

Photo by Ömer Furkan Yakar on Pexels