KHAN YUNIS: As springtime temperatures rise in Gaza, a surge in rats, fleas and other pests has compounded the misery of hundreds of thousands of displaced people still living in tents after more than two years of war.

With meagre shelter and almost no sanitation, Palestinians told AFP the vermin are invading their makeshift homes, biting children and contaminating food, in what aid agencies warned was a growing public health threat.

“My children have been bitten. One of my sons was even bitten on the nose,” said Muhammad al-Raqab, a displaced Palestinian man living in a tent near the southern city of Khan Yunis.

“I am unable to sleep through the night because I must constantly watch over the children,” the 32-year-old construction worker, originally from Bani Shueila, told AFP.

Israeli settler gunfire kills two Palestinians in West Bank

With shelters erected directly on soft sand by the Mediterranean Sea, rodents can easily burrow under tent walls and wreak havoc inside, where people have established makeshift pantries and kitchens. “The rodents have eaten through my tent,” Raqab said.

According to the UN, 1.7 million of Gaza’s 2.2 million inhabitants still live in displacement camps, unable to return home or to areas that remain under Israeli military control despite a ceasefire that began in October 2025.

Hani al-Flait, head of pediatrics at Al-Aqsa Hospital in central Gaza, told AFP his team encounters skin infections such as scabies daily.

“The severity of these skin infections has been exacerbated by the fact that these children and their families are living in harsh conditions that lack basic public sanitation, as well as a complete absence of safe water,” he said.

Sabreen Abu Taybeh, whose son has been suffering from a rash, blamed the conditions in the camp. “We are living in tents and schools flooded with sewage,” she said, showing the rash covering her son’s upper body.

Two Palestinians killed

Meanwhile, the Palestinian Authority said Israeli settler gunfire killed two Palestinians, including a 14-year-old boy, on Tuesday in the central occupied West Bank, while the Israeli military said it was reviewing the incident.

Two were martyred by settler gunfire in Al-Mughayyir, east of Ramallah, and three others were injured, the Palestinian health ministry said, confirming the deaths previously reported by the Red Crescent.

The health ministry identified the dead Palestinians as 14-year-old Aws Hamdi Al-Naasan and 32-year-old Jihad Marzouq Abu Naim, both from Al-Mughayyir.

At the hospital, distraught and weeping relatives crowded around the bodies, which were draped in Palestinian flags.

The Israeli military said it was “aware of the claim regarding two Palestinians who were killed, and additional injuries” in Al-Mughayyir and added that the circumstances of the incident were under review.

The mayor of Al-Mughayyir, Amin Abu Alia, told AFP by phone that Tuesday’s shooting took place near the local boys’ school. He said he arrived at the scene at around 11:45am, just after the shooting began and saw at least 10 settlers and between five and seven Israeli soldiers.

Published in Dawn, April 22nd, 2026