Anxieties are growing across Gaza as a fast-moving illness takes hold among displaced families living in cramped camps, where medicine is scarce and living conditions have collapsed. Residents describe a surge in feverish symptoms sweeping through tents and temporary shelters, heightening fears of a wider public-health emergency amid a genocidal war that has left communities exposed and unprotected.

Overcrowding is widely seen as the main driver. Families packed tightly together report that sickness is moving rapidly from one household to another, while piles of uncollected waste sit near living areas. With infrastructure destroyed, rainwater has mixed with sewage, raising concerns about contamination and the spread of disease. Parents speak of children burning with fever at night, with little access to treatment beyond improvised remedies.

The illness, commonly described as a severe influenza-like condition, has emerged in a setting where clinics struggle to function and pharmacies stand empty. Medical services are either absent or overwhelmed, and essential drugs are increasingly unavailable. Displaced residents warn that without swift intervention, the spread of disease could rival previous global outbreaks, turning displacement camps into epicentres of infection.

Gaza’s health system is near exhaustion. Large segments of emergency, surgical, and intensive care services have ceased or operate with critical shortages, leaving hundreds of thousands without reliable care. As the genocidal war continues to erode sanitation, shelter, and healthcare, residents fear that disease may claim lives long after the bombardment fades, unless immediate public-health measures and supplies are allowed to reach those most at risk.