'If we sleep they bite': Rats and weasels infest camps for displaced Gazans

"We woke up to the sound of her screaming at 2am," Samah al-Daabla, the mother of four-year-old Mayaseen, tells the BBC.

"When my husband turned on the torch, the weasel ran away. I looked at my daughter's hand, and it was all blood. Everything was bloody."

In the Gaza Strip, left devastated by war, the daily battles are now with rats, urban weasels and other pests spreading diseases.

Aid workers are calling for urgent steps to counter a public health crisis.

Cogat, the Israeli defence body that controls Gaza's crossings, says it is working with international organisations "to address sanitation needs".

Mayaseen was given a tetanus injection in a Gaza City hospital but suffered from days of fever and vomiting. She is now recovering in her family's tent.

Social media feeds have recently shown footage of rats running amok in camps for displaced families, and of newborn babies, the sick and elderly after rodents have attacked them.

One grandmother with nerve damage to her feet caused by diabetes has spoken of having parts of her toes bitten off.

In a recent survey, cited by UN agencies, rodents or pests were frequently visible in 80% of sites where displaced families are now living, affecting some 1.45 million people.

Rodents can harm people through bites and scratches as well as their urine, droppings and fleas. These can cause respiratory and skin diseases, blood infections and food poisoning.

The local World Health Organization (WHO) representative, Dr Reinhilde Van De Weert, says the new infestations are "unfortunately, the predictable consequence of a collapsed living environment".

More than six months after the US brokered a Gaza ceasefire deal, it has failed to deliver hoped-for improvements in the humanitarian situation and progress appears to be stuck.

There are still regular deadly airstrikes in which Israel says it is targeting Hamas. Hamas, which triggered the Gaza war with its deadly assault on Israel and mass hostage taking in October 2023, has not committed to disarming.

No reconstruction has taken place. Gazans do not yet have any of the 200,000 caravans which Palestinian officials say they need as temporary homes.

With raw sewage water running through many overcrowded campsites, they have become breeding grounds for rodents. In the warmer springtime weather, the animals are thriving in the huge piles of rubbish which have accumulated next to people's tents.

Many parents say they keep vigil at night to protect their children and belongings from invading animals.

"We cannot sleep! If we sleep, they bite the children and disturb us. There are so many weasels and rats – an abnormal number," says Rizq Abu Laila, who lives right next to a rubbish dump in Gaza City with his four young children, one of whom has cancer.

"They go in the rubbish and fight because there are so many of them. I swear we can't endure it. The rats have torn our clothes and eaten our flour. There are mosquitoes and foul smells. We call on international institutions to help us."