‘The rat gnawed at my toes’: Rodent infestation overruns Gaza’s displaced

Inshirah Hajjaj was trying to sleep in her tent in Gaza City, ignoring a mouse scuttling near her pillow, when a large rat began gnawing at her toes.

The 63-year-old, who suffers from advanced diabetes that has left her with little sensation in her extremities, did not initially realise she had been bitten.

It was only the following morning that her sister-in-law noticed the wound and was horrified.

“At the time, I thought my foot had simply hit something inside the tent, and I hadn’t felt it,” Hajjaj told Middle East Eye.

“But in the following days, my toes began to swell and turn blue. Then I started waking up to find new wounds.”

Read more: ‘The rat gnawed at my toes’: Rodent infestation overruns Gaza’s displaced