A Palestinian child walks amid the rubble near a displaced persons camp in Nuseirat, central Gaza, on June 28, 2026. (Credit: Eyad Baba/AFP)
Lurking in the shadows of rubble, they have turned destroyed houses into their habitat. From there, they scatter with squeaks through makeshift shelters of canvas and nylon where around two million Palestinians survive — hungry, sick, and exhausted. "The rats feed off the bodies left under the debris. They've gotten used to human flesh. They're aggressive; I've never seen anything like this," Issam Ghazal said via WhatsApp on June 24. Each night, he and his wife Rawand take turns staying awake, hoping their 24-day-old daughter Nour escapes the rodents' teeth and claws. In the ruins of the Gaza Strip, devastated by two years of Israeli offensives following Hamas' attack on Oct. 7, 2023, surviving 24 hours without suffering a rat bite, scabies infection, or contracting another parasitic disease has become a...
Lurking in the shadows of rubble, they have turned destroyed houses into their habitat. From there, they scatter with squeaks through makeshift shelters of canvas and nylon where around two million Palestinians survive — hungry, sick, and exhausted. "The rats feed off the bodies left under the debris. They've gotten used to human flesh. They're aggressive; I've never seen anything like this," Issam Ghazal said via WhatsApp on June 24. Each night, he and his wife Rawand take turns staying awake, hoping their 24-day-old daughter Nour escapes the rodents' teeth and claws. In the ruins of the Gaza Strip, devastated by two years of Israeli offensives following Hamas' attack on Oct. 7, 2023, surviving 24 hours without suffering a rat bite, scabies infection, or contracting another parasitic disease has become...
