29/11/2023–|Last updated: 11/29/202308:44 PM (Mecca time)
Gaza Civil Defense teams recovered about 250 bodies of martyrs from the streets and roads in Gaza City And the northern Gaza Strip, during the past five days Temporary truce between the Islamic Resistance Movement (agitation) and Israel.
Civil Defense spokesman, Major Mahmoud Basal, said in an exclusive interview with Al Jazeera Net, that 90% of these bodies were decomposed and unidentified, because they had been lying in the streets for a long time, without the ambulance and civil defense teams being able to reach and recover them, due to the intensity of the Israeli air strikes. And the ground incursion deep into the areas of Gaza City and its north.
In the following dialogue, the Civil Defense spokesman talks about the great challenges facing their work in the field, and the painful and poignant humanitarian scenes of survivors under the rubble of their destroyed homes, and the families of martyrs under the rubble, wracked with pain, and the ambulance and civil defense teams are unable to recover them, regardless of the fact that these homes are in dangerous areas. There are still Israeli tanks and vehicles there, or due to weak human and material capabilities.
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Did the days of the truce help you move in the field to evacuate the wounded and recover the martyrs?
From the first moment the temporary truce agreement entered into force, teams formed for this purpose moved and surveyed the streets and roads in the areas they were able to reach in Gaza City and the northern Gaza Strip, where there are no Israeli tanks and vehicles. The scenes were painful and shocking, and there are many areas Our teams could not reach it because it is fraught with too many risks.
The occupation opened fire without hesitation on anyone moving, and on citizens who tried to reach their homes to inspect them, such as the vicinity of the Al-Quds Hospital affiliated with the Red Crescent Society in the Tal Al-Hawa neighborhood, southwest of Gaza City, and the Al-Rantisi and Al-Nasr Children’s Hospitals in the Al-Nasr neighborhood, north of Gaza City, and other areas adjacent to the Israeli security fence. In the east of Gaza City and the north of the Strip.
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What are the highlights of these scenes?
Many of these scenes may not have reached the imagination of the filmmakers and fictional films… the decomposing bodies of martyrs, including a group of women, children and men who were killed by the occupation forces while they were raising white flags and on their way to flee from the north of the Gaza Strip towards its south, after the intensity of the aggression against those areas increased. With an Israeli motive to empty it of its residents and push them to migrate towards the cities of the southern Gaza Strip.
This crime demonstrated the lie of the safe paths and areas claimed by the occupation, as these and others were exposed to gunfire and direct targeting, without regard to the white flags that indicated their peacefulness.
There is a scene that cannot fade from my memory, of a mother who was rescued by civil defense crews while she was hugging her child to protect him until she took her last breath, and another scene of an entire family that our teams recovered from under the rubble of their home after 5 days, and all of its members, men, women, and children, were alive.
In Al-Shifa Hospital before it was invaded by the occupation forces, a man came to me asking where the raid was and what did it target? I told him a house in the Tal Al-Hawa neighborhood belonged to the family of so-and-so, and he found the owner of that house, and his wife and all his children had been martyred. This is a repeated scene that millions around the world may have followed in Video clips spread on social media platforms of doctors, nurses, civil defense members, and journalists, during their field work, being surprised to receive their families, martyrs and wounded.
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How many bodies did civil defense teams recover from Gaza and its north?
So far, since the armistice agreement entered into force, we have recovered approximately 250 bodies, 90% of which were decomposed and unidentified. It was difficult to identify them due to the severe disfigurement they sustained as a result of their exposure to intense fire and their transformation into body parts as well as their decomposition, as the majority of them remained in the streets and roads since the beginning of the war. The ground operation and the incursion of occupation tanks and vehicles deep into Gaza City and the cities and regions of the northern Gaza Strip.
These decomposed corpses pose a severe danger to ambulance and civil defense crews, and the population in general, and preventive medicine was supposed to deal with them, but as a result of the emergency, our crews cooperated with the families of the martyrs in recovering them and delivering them to the cemeteries and burying them.
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What about the martyrs trapped under the rubble?
Our work during the days of the truce was limited to recovering the bodies of martyrs from the streets and squares, and we did not deal with the destroyed homes and residential buildings, under which the Ministry of Health estimates about 7,000 missing persons were trapped, as their recovery requires huge mechanisms, to remove thousands of tons of rubble, and the Civil Defense in the northern regions. The Strip, including Gaza City, only has one excavator, after the occupation forces targeted three excavators and put them out of service, and practiced terrorism against those working on these excavators during the weeks of the war, to discourage them from working and moving in the field.
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In terms of numbers, what are your human and material losses during the war?
25 individuals were martyred and more than 100 others were injured, including cases of amputation, from civil defense field crews, as a result of crimes that directly targeted them. EIn addition to the martyrs and wounded field crews, the occupation forces destroyed the main civil defense center in Jabalia, north of the Gaza Strip, and directly targeted fire engines and ambulances, as the defense apparatus in the north of the Gaza Strip has 32 fire engines, the majority of which were out of service, and 5 out of 9 ambulances were out of service. the service.
The occupation forces also destroyed the main and only water tank that supplied the fire trucks, with a capacity of 15,000 litres, which was built and funded by the State of Qatar in Gaza City. It went out of service and currently needs maintenance.
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How did this targeting affect your work?
As a result of the long-year siege and repeated wars on the Gaza Strip, the Civil Defense Service is suffering from several crises, most notably the lack of human resources and weak financial capabilities. It should be noted here that the number of field crew members in Gaza City and the northern Strip is only 150, out of 800 members. At the sector level, noting that the protocol regulating the work of civil defense agencies worldwide indicates that every thousand citizens need one civil defense member, which means that we need 3 times this number to perform the required tasks.
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The situation is this bad. How long will the martyrs remain buried under the rubble of destroyed homes and buildings?
It is with great sadness that I say that we will not be able to recover the martyrs and missing persons from under the rubble of destroyed homes and buildings before the human and material resources are available, and we urgently need 50 excavators and 50 bulldozers to remove tons of rubble spread across every street, neighborhood, and city across the Strip.
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Have you received any external, regional or international offers of assistance from civil defense agencies?
No one communicated with us, and no party offered us assistance with human resources, machinery, equipment, or material capabilities. Likewise, we have not received any liter of fuel since the occupation forces invaded the areas north of the Gaza Strip and isolated them from its south, and they continue to prevent the delivery of fuel to us even after the temporary truce agreement was reached. .
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What are your current priorities and needs?
In short, we need a new civil defense apparatus, as the catastrophic results of the Israeli war cannot be dealt with with our small crews and modest capabilities, a large percentage of which have gone out of service.
