The scent hits you earlier than you even see the tents. Within the al-Taawun camp, wedged between Yarmouk Stadium and al-Sahaba Avenue in central Gaza Metropolis, the road between human habitation and human waste has been erased.
Pressured to flee their houses by Israel’s genocidal struggle in Gaza, 765 households have arrange makeshift shelters straight on high of and adjoining to an infinite stable waste dump. Right here, amid mountains of rotting rubbish, they’re preventing a shedding battle in opposition to illness, pests and the psychological horror of dwelling in filth.
Fayez al-Jadi, a father who has been displaced 12 instances because the struggle started, mentioned the circumstances are stripping them of their humanity.
“The rats eat the tents from beneath,” al-Jadi informed Al Jazeera. “They stroll on our faces whereas we sleep. My daughter is eighteen months previous. A rat ran proper over her face. Each day, she has gastroenteritis, vomiting, diarrhoea or malnutrition.”
Al-Jadi’s plea is just not for a luxurious lodging, only a mere 40 to 50 metres (130ft to 164ft) of unpolluted house to stay in, he mentioned. “We wish to stay like human beings.”
‘We get up screaming’
The sanitary disaster has unleashed a plague of pores and skin infections among the many 4,000 residents of the camp. With no operating water or sewage system, scabies has unfold like wildfire.
Fares Jamal Sobh, a six-month-old toddler, spends his nights crying. His mom factors to the crimson, indignant rashes protecting his small physique.
“He doesn’t sleep at evening due to the itching,” she mentioned. “We get up to seek out cockroaches and mosquitoes on him. We convey drugs, but it surely’s ineffective as a result of we live on trash.”
Um Hamza, a grandmother caring for a big prolonged household, together with a blind husband and a son affected by bronchial asthma, mentioned disgrace is now not compounding their struggling.
“We’ve stopped being ashamed to say my daughter is roofed in scabies,” she informed Al Jazeera. “We’ve used 5 – 6 bottles of ointment, but it surely’s in useless.”
She added that the collapse of Gaza’s healthcare system has left them with nowhere to show. “The hospitals, like al-Ahli, have began turning us away. … They write us a prescription and inform us to go purchase it, however there isn’t a drugs to purchase.”
![Six-month-old Fares Sobh suffers from severe skin infections and asthma caused by the unsanitary conditions at the al-Taawun camp in Gaza City, where displaced families are forced to live atop a solid waste dump. [Screengrab/Al Jazeera]](https://www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/image-1-copy-1771232395.jpg?w=770&resize=770%2C513&quality=80)
A metropolis drowning in waste
The circumstances at al-Taawun are a microcosm of a citywide collapse. Hamada Abu Laila, a college lecturer who helps administer the camp, warned of an “environmental disaster” exacerbated by the dearth of sewage networks and consuming water throughout Gaza Metropolis.
However the issue goes deeper than a scarcity of help. In keeping with Husni Muhanna, spokesperson for the Gaza Municipality, the disaster is man-made. Israeli forces have blocked entry to the Gaza Strip’s major landfill within the east, forcing the creation of hazardous momentary dumps in populated areas like Yarmouk and the historic Firas Market.
“Greater than 350,000 tonnes of stable waste are piling up inside Gaza Metropolis alone,” Muhanna told Al Jazeera in January.
He defined that the municipality is paralysed by a “advanced set of obstacles”, together with the destruction of equipment, extreme gasoline shortages and fixed safety dangers. With interventions restricted to primitive means, the municipality can now not handle waste in accordance with well being requirements, leaving 1000’s of displaced households to sleep atop a poisonous time bomb.
Sleeping subsequent to a tank shell
The hazards in al-Taawun usually are not simply organic. Rizq Abu Laila, displaced from the city of Beit Lahiya within the north, lives along with his household subsequent to an unexploded tank shell that lies among the many garbage luggage and plastic sheets.
“We live subsequent to a dump filled with snakes and stray cats,” Abu Laila mentioned, pointing to the ordnance. “That is an unexploded shell proper subsequent to the tents. With the warmth of the solar, it might explode at any second. The place are we presupposed to go along with our youngsters?”
His daughter, Shahd, is petrified of the pack of untamed canine that roam the dump at evening. “I’m afraid of the canine as a result of they bark,” she whispered.
Widad Sobh, one other resident, described the nights as a horror film. “The canine bang in opposition to the tent material. … They wish to assault and eat. I keep up all evening chasing them away.”
For Um Hamza, the day by day battle for survival has reached a breaking level.
“I swear by God, we eat bread after the rats have eaten from it,” she mentioned, describing the determined starvation within the camp. “All I ask is that they discover us a greater place, … a spot away from the waste.”
