The key facts
- Residents of both northern and southern Gaza report a recurring stench resembling a sewage smell
- Gaza's civil defence holds Israeli forces responsible and says the smell was sprayed from the air
- Gaza's health ministry cannot identify the substance due to a lack of equipment to analyse samples
Mass complaints about an unexplained smell
Residents of the Gaza Strip have in recent weeks reported a periodically appearing foul smell resembling sewage. Saber Zaqout, a resident of the Nuseirat camp in central Gaza, told The National that one morning he noticed the smell in his home; the family checked all possible sources but found nothing. Later, on social media, he saw that residents across the entire Strip — both in the south and in the north — were complaining about the smell.
Civil defence points to Israel
Mahmoud Basal, spokesman for Gaza's civil defence, told the publication that teams had detected the smell repeatedly in recent weeks, and that it caused confusion and anxiety among residents, especially children, the elderly and the sick. According to him, the civil defence considers Israeli forces responsible and asserts that the smell was sprayed from the air. He recalled that Israel had previously used a foul-smelling liquid to disperse protesters — during the 'Great March of Return' near the Gaza border in 2018 and during protests in the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood of East Jerusalem. The liquid, developed by an Israeli company, is known as 'The Skunk'; its smell has been described as a mixture of sewage and decomposing flesh.
Testimonies from the north of the Strip
Moamen Abu Jayab, 30, who lives in a camp for displaced people in the Al-Tawam area in northern Gaza, said he first noticed the smell about a month to a month and a half ago. His family and neighbours first suspected the camp's toilets, then checked the sewage system, but found no problems. An hour or two later, the smell was also present at the market; people said that since dawn it had spread across all areas of the north and lingered. Rumours soon spread that the Israeli military had sprayed a foul-smelling substance; Abu Jayab said he initially did not know whether these claims were true, but later saw social media posts and statements by the civil defence attributing responsibility to Israel.
The substance could not be identified
Ayyoub al-Ramlawi, director of the environmental sanitation and occupational safety department at Gaza's health ministry, said the authorities cannot determine the substance causing the smell because they lack equipment for collecting and analysing samples. 'Without laboratory analysis, we cannot reach a definite conclusion about the substance,' he said. He warned that exposure to unidentified gases or substances in the air could affect the environment and residents' health, especially people with weakened immune systems and respiratory illnesses. Abu Jayab added that the smell has become yet another source of hardship for families already suffering from displacement and insecurity after two years of war between Israel and Hamas, which left Gaza in ruins.
