In Gaza, people do not sleep easily, not because of the bombing or the sound of planes, but because of what moves beneath them.

Gaza’s camps are facing a growing environmental and health crisis, driven by attacks by the Israeli occupation that have damaged infrastructure. The accumulation of waste, contaminated water, and the collapse of sewage systems and infrastructure have created overcrowded conditions that produce rodents and insects, increasing the risk of disease, while access to medical care remains limited.

At night, different routines begin. Blankets are lifted, the edges of the tent are checked, food is kept within reach, and people try to seal gaps that cannot truly be sealed. In one tent, a phone flashlight stays on all night to spot rats moving through the darkness. In another, a family chooses to stay awake rather than risk falling into deep sleep.

Since the moment I was forced to live in a camp in Al-Mawasi after we were displaced from Rafah two years ago, following the paper carrying the evacuation orders, the signs of a crisis that were not always visible became clear.

In one of the camps where I volunteered, a displaced man told me:

“Our war is not only in the bombing or the planes. Our war is at night, with what moves under us and does not let us sleep.”

This feeling does not belong to one person alone. Across the camp, the same scenes repeat: faint sounds beneath the ground, bags shifting, and children waking up in fear, especially after images spread of children bitten by rats while sleeping inside tents. These are no longer exceptional details, but part of the daily rhythms.

One night in April, while I was sleeping at my grandmother’s place, she woke up terrified to a bite on her hand. At first, it was not clear, just a slight feeling of movement near her. When she realized what was happening, a rat had already begun to gnaw at her skin, but she woke up before any blood was drawn. Because she suffers from diabetes and high blood pressure, she knows that even a small scratch can be dangerous. She said, “I have started to feel afraid of sleep. I keep touching around me all the time.”

At that moment, the tent was no longer a place for sleep, but a space that required constant caution. What could have been a passing incident became a very real possibility every night.

But what happens inside these tents cannot be understood through rodents alone.

Rats are only part of a wider crisis formed by the collapse of an entire system that includes water, waste, and sewage. These factors together do not just create difficult conditions, but an environment that continuously produces illness.

Hundreds of thousands of displaced people live in tight spaces, within a broader reality of mass displacement that includes more than 1.9 million people, where several families share a single tent or limited facilities. Clean water is scarce, and contaminated sources are often used, while waste accumulates inside the camps, especially as municipalities are unable to reach main dumping sites due to restrictions and attacks on border areas by the Israeli occupation. In such an environment, it becomes difficult to control the spread of rodents, especially with the approach of summer and rising temperatures.

This issue extends to an entire system that includes insects, flies, fleas, and mosquitoes. These overlapping problems increase the risk of disease transmission, especially in the context of weakened immunity caused by malnutrition.

Reports indicate that more than 17,000 cases linked to rodents and parasites have been recorded among displaced people, while more than 80 percent of camps suffer from the spread of skin diseases. These numbers reflect a reality that goes beyond discomfort, reaching the level of a serious health risk.

In this reality, residents try to adapt using limited means. “We spray pesticides, but what is the point?” one person says. “If I spray and the person next to me does not, the problem comes back from everywhere.”

These individual efforts remain limited in their impact in an open and overcrowded environment, where the problem cannot be isolated or contained within a single tent.

The danger also extends to the contamination they cause to food. In the absence of proper storage spaces, food is kept inside tents, making it vulnerable to spoilage or contamination.

My mother always says, “When you buy something, make sure it has a cover.” But in a tent, nothing is truly closed.

With limited resources, some people are forced to reduce the amount of food they buy, out of fear of losing it.

In our tent, my brother Mohammad and I try to deal with it in our own way. We set traps, watch the corners, and try to limit movement as much as possible. But despite that, sleep remains interrupted. The problem returns every night in a different form.

Every time we see a rat, my father repeats:

“It is not the rodents that came to us. We came into their environment.”

In this sentence, the paradox is clear. What is supposed to be a shelter has become part of an ecosystem that cannot be controlled, one that was not designed for human life in the first place.

At night, with no electricity, the situation becomes more complicated. Complete darkness takes over, and nothing that moves can be seen. You do not see what moves, but you know that it is there. The “real day” begins after sunset, when movement increases and the sense of safety decreases.

Some families stay awake to guard their children. Mothers hold their children all night, afraid that something might come near them while they sleep. Nighttime is no longer about rest, but a constant attempt at protection.

Even the tent itself fails to provide safety or shelter. Rodents can dig through the sand and enter from below, and they can damage the fabric.

In the end, what is happening inside these tents is not just a series of separate problems, but the result of the collapse of an entire environment that once organized daily life – all due to the destruction of infrastructure by the Israeli occupation. The impact of disappearing water and sewage systems and waste management becomes evident in the everyday lives and experiences of the people living within these camps.

In a place that is supposed to be temporary, survival itself has become a daily struggle that cannot be avoided. And this is what is not seen, except by those who live here.