Five Shekels Per Head

In Gaza, the war no longer comes just from the sky.

There is another war creeping in at night from beneath the rubble — emerging from the cracks of broken sewage systems, from piles of trash that haven’t been cleared for months, and from the torn tents that have turned into warm, damp swamps. A war without sirens, without live cameras, and without names in international statements. Gaza, which survived the bombardment... has fallen asleep under the teeth of rats.

With the collapse of the sewage system and the accumulation of more than 120,000 tons of waste in the streets of the sector — according to UN estimates — and the ban on entering pesticides and pest-control materials amid the restrictions imposed since the onset of war, the displacement camps have witnessed an explosion in the numbers of rats, mice, and snakes. The animals that used to flee from humans now share the same tent, the same food, and sometimes the faces of their children.

In one tent in the western sector, (A) was gathering her embroidered dress and bed linens inside a wooden box — this was all that remained of her belongings that she had prepared before the war. On a suffocating, humid night, she woke up to the sound of continuous gnawing. She turned on her phone's flashlight to find dozens of rats nibbling at what she had collected. The white dress was torn. The linens were ripped. The new clothes were just threads on the sand. She sat until dawn collecting the remnants of the fabric, in silence resembling that of someone who doesn’t know from what they should start crying.

In another tent, it wasn’t about clothing. (S), a three-year-old boy, was sleeping next to his mother when he woke up screaming. The wild lizard — "the wedding" — had sunk its teeth into his face and hand. His father terrified carried him to a field medical point, and the child trembled for hours afterward, not just from the pain but from something he couldn't name.

"These are cases we see daily now," says a field doctor working in a makeshift hospital in the central sector, asking not to disclose his name. "Rodent bites, rapidly spreading skin infections, suspected cases of leptospirosis. Children and diabetics are at the most risk — a small wound in an unsterilized environment turns into a catastrophe."

(M), a man in his sixties displaced from northern Gaza, hid what remained of his savings under his pillow. In the morning, he found the banknotes torn. He was keeping them for his wife’s medication. He sat gathering scraps from the ground, then said with bitterness needing no explanation: "Even the sustenance is eaten before we can eat it."

But the strangest thing produced by this crisis wasn’t just inside the tents, but in between them: unofficial signs and verbal announcements saying — "Each head for five shekels." With the absence of municipalities, lack of resources, and pesticide bans, shop owners, cafes, and young men from the camps have launched financial rewards for killing rats: five shekels for a rat, one shekel for a mouse, ten for a snake. Thus, the pursuit of pests has turned into a survival economy.

(B), a seventeen-year-old boy, returned one night proudly lifting three dead rats with a pride he didn’t know how to label: "Tonight, I brought bread for my siblings from the price of the rats." He wasn’t laughing. He wasn’t crying. He was just stating what it was.

In vast areas of the sector, people can no longer sleep soundly. Mothers stay awake until dawn afraid for their children's faces. Some tie the corners of the tents with ropes and plastic. Others burn pieces of plastic all night just to keep the rodents away with smoke — knowing that the smoke also destroys the lungs.

What’s happening is not a "health nuisance" crisis. It is a direct result of systematic collapse: broken sewage systems, accumulated waste, banned pesticides, and tents that weren’t designed to withstand gnawing or moisture. When the basic tools for life are prohibited, people don’t just die from bombs — they die from what bombs leave behind.

And at the end of a night like any other, inside a tent barely standing on the sand, a mother held her child close and mumbled in fear that encapsulates all of Gaza: "We’ve come to fear sleep more than bombardment... the bombardment kills once, but the rats eat us every night."