GAZA, (PIC)
“Civil defense is here, is there anyone under the rubble?”
“On the first floor there is a mother and her daughters, and under the rubble we hear the voices of children.”
These are expressions that have been etched into the minds of the people of the Gaza Strip for over 290 days of the ongoing Israeli aggression, where Civil Defense teams carry out heroic roles in rescuing the injured and retrieving the bodies of martyrs, with primitive tools and under intense bombardment over their heads.
2,300 Civil Defense personnel were sufficient to manage emergencies before the war, but at a time when this number is expected to increase exponentially under the weight of the destruction caused by the ongoing Israeli aggression, we find that the number has shrunk to just a few hundred after the occupation targeted them while they were carrying out their work, resulting in 79 martyrs and hundreds of injured.
The spokesman for the Civil Defense in Gaza, Mahmoud Basal, said in previous statements that the Civil Defense in Gaza has lost 80% of its capabilities and capacities, negatively affecting the work of the crews, adding, “We need civil defense vehicles, fire trucks and a large amount of equipment.”
He also pointed out that the Civil Defense is unable to remove the huge piles of rubble left by the Israeli war, and that the Israeli occupation army prevents the crews from reaching the areas where the martyrs and the injured are, which often leads to an increase in the number of victims.
The occupation army rejects any coordination between the Civil Defense and the Red Cross to carry out humanitarian tasks in the Gaza Strip, confirmed Basal.
Being part of the Civil Defense teams requires you to have a strong will and emotional stability in the face of the horrific scenes and brutal massacres that the residents of the Gaza Strip are subjected to around the clock. The matter does not stop at recovering bodies or removing the rubble, as there is another aspect of the tragedies that the Civil Defense men constantly experience; where they often hear the cry of a distressed person (perhaps a man, woman or child), and they can only reach them with great difficulty, and the voice may be cut off before reaching the victim, who could be already dead by the time they could reach him.
Another image that many people cannot bear is constantly experienced by the Civil Defense teams; where an infant or a small child is found alone among his/her martyred family members, and he/she may be missing a limb or injured without being accompanied by any of their family members.
The Civil Defense men not only succeeded in carrying out their job duties, but they also continue to amaze all those following their work with the integrity and dedication they display in their work; where they often find money, gold jewelry and valuable possessions, perhaps no longer belonging to their owners after the entire family was martyred, and yet the heroic rescuers do not extend their hands to anything of it, but rather collect it to be handed over to the remaining family members or the notables of the afflicted areas to be dealt with according to each case.
The Israeli bombardment does not spare the Civil Defense workers, despite the fact that they are protected under international law. Rather, it deliberately targets them as part of a “scorched earth” policy, aimed at establishing the principle that “there is no salvation for anyone, no respect for the law, and no exception for any group.”
The Israeli targeting of Civil Defense teams comes within the framework of the ongoing Israeli violations against their personnel who provide purely humanitarian services and seek to save lives. This is a flagrant violation of international humanitarian law and all the Geneva Conventions that guaranteed the freedom of work for humanitarian service providers.
On July 14th, the General Directorate of Civil Defense in the Gaza Strip announced the killing of a third element affiliated with it in the massacre of the Israeli army in the Mawasi Khan Yunis area (south), raising the number of martyrs of the Directorate to 79 since the outbreak of the war.
The General Directorate said in a statement, “The number of Civil Defense martyrs in the Israeli massacre in Mawasi, Khan Yunis, has risen to 3 martyrs, after the firefighter Bilal Ramadan Farhan succumbed to his serious injury.”
