When Yasmin Shath, a 28-year-old bank clerk, saw the notice on Facebook she froze.

Hamas, the Islamist militant group that controls the Gaza strip, had announced they were banning dog walking.

Ms Shath’s thoughts immediately turned to Raed, her family’s lumbering two-year-old German Shepherd who lives in the garage of their home in Gaza City.

“I couldn’t believe it,” she said. “Everyone tagged me in the notice on Facebook because they know I am a dog lover. I thought: this can’t be true.”

But it was. And in the three weeks since Hamas announced the ban dog owners in Gaza have been forced to keep their pets indoors, often in small apartments with no air conditioning amid the rising summer heat.