What is it like to be a civil defense worker in Gaza?

“Is anyone alive?” Civil Defence worker, Yasser Haboub, shouted into the rubble of the Abu Shaar family home, which was destroyed by an Israeli airstrike the middle of the night of 14 January at the Al-Daraj neighbourhood, centre of Gaza City.

Haboub repeated the call, hoping to catch a sign that there were still people alive under the rubble. Seconds later, a boy’s screams erupted, “I’m alive.”

All the Civil Defence workers turned on their cell phone lights because Israel has cut off electricity to the Gaza Strip for more than 15 months, and began desperately searching for survivors among the rubble, using primitive tools such as shovels, which are tools used primarily for agricultural purposes.

They were able to create a gap between the rubble that might lead to the source of the boy’s voice, who they asked to continue calling to follow his trail. Haboub tied himself with a rope and descended through the gap in search of the boy.

People were gathering around the house praying to God for the rescue operation to succeed. Everyone waited, and the civil defence workers were ready to pull the rope. A few minutes later, their colleague Haboub’s voice came up to them, “pull the rope”. Haboub was pulled out with a boy who looked to be between twelve and fourteen years old. The site immediately filled with the thunder of applause and shouts of greeting to the Civil Defence workers, who quickly put the boy in an ambulance to be sent to a hospital to receive treatment.

This moment is one of many similar in which the heroes of the civil defence worker in the Gaza Strip struggled against Israel’s genocidal war on the Gaza Strip since 7 October 2023. They worked with minimal capabilities, a severe shortage of fuel, as Israel indiscriminately attacked around them, with no mercy and did not differentiate between civilians and armed fighters.

“We will continue until the last breath as long as we have life,” Haboub remarked The New Arab. He described the work of the civil defence as “heroic”, adding, “When the driver of the fire truck is martyred, his commander takes over the task of driving it; and when the vehicle breaks down, the crew continues its way to the site of the incident on foot; and when we do not find equipment, we dig through the rubble with our fingernails.”

He pointed out the difficult psychological state that Civil Defence staff are experiencing after multiple missions that included horrific scenes of severed limbs and the omnipresent smell of blood and charred bodies, setting off nightmares and insomnia. 

TNA’s conversation with Haboub was forced to end quickly after receiving a new distress signal following a new Israeli airstrike.

‘A mission to save my family’

In the city of Deir al-Balah in central Gaza, the Civil Defence team received a distress signal to save those who remained alive in one of the houses that had just been hit by an Israeli airstrike.

Civil Defence member, Mohammed Radwan, 32 years old, quickly got on board a fire truck that was heading to the scene of the incident. He asked his colleague, “Where did the new bombing take place?” The answer came to him, “On Al-Bi’ah Street, west of Deir al-Balah,” and fear appeared on Radwan’s face. He responded with a trembling voice, “That’s where my family lives.”

The targeted house was located next to Radwan’s family house, but the collapse of the former caused the destruction of part of his family’s house.

Radwan arrived at the site of the Israeli attack, his heart beat faster when he saw that the residents had already started to evacuate the injured from the two houses.

As soon as he pushed himself under his family’s house in search of his wife and three children, he found his wife lying on the ground injured, her head bleeding and hugging two of their children, all of whom were alive.

Radwan and a number of his colleagues quickly took them out of the house while he thanked God for the safety of his family members from death. He asked his wife, while crying, “Where is Jourie?” She answered that his eldest daughter, who was 12 years old, was still inside and missing.

He rushed back into the house, desperately searching through the rooms for his daughter. Suddenly, he heard her crying under a wooden board as she called out, “Dad, save me… my leg is broken and bleeding.” He pulled her out from under the rubble and quickly took her to the ambulance.

Radwan told TNA that he is used to comforting the families of the victims after every rescue operation he carries out, but this time he was the one receiving sympathy phrases from citizens for what happened to his family.

“Being part of the Civil Defence teams in Gaza requires great courage and psychological strength to face the harshest and most painful scenes. The mission here is not limited to lifting rubble and rescuing victims from under the rubble, but rather includes a daily struggle with the human pain that grows inside you,” he added.

The Civil Defence workers face daily distress calls carrying the voices of people struggling for death under the rubble, whether it be a child, a woman, or an elderly person. Often, they arrive after great effort, only to find that the voice they were following has died.

Sacrifices without capabilities

“The Civil Defence has gone beyond its traditional job role to become a humanitarian target in the face of daily dangers,” is how the spokesman for the Civil Defence in Gaza, Mahmoud Basal, remarked to TNA.

Basal pointed out that at least 99 members of the Civil Defence were killed by Israel, while 317 others were wounded. Israel had also detained at least 27 members, without charges or trials.

He explained that the Israeli army directly targeted the Civil Defence crews six times while they were sleeping in their headquarters, and 18 times while carrying out field rescue missions, “and this is considered a flagrant violation of all international conventions that guarantee the protection of rescue teams, especially the Fourth Geneva Convention”.

Basal further stressed that the Civil Defence lost 85 percent of its capabilities and capacities, which greatly affected the work of the crews, noting that the material losses of the device exceeded one and a half million dollars due to the destruction of equipment and vehicles.

 He explained that the Israeli forces destroyed 17 out of 21 civil defence centres, and 61 out of 72 vehicles, despite following the coding protocol indicating that they belong to civil defence.

Regarding rescue operations, Basal explained that the crews rely on priorities when dealing with injuries, “We listen to distress calls through gaps in the walls, and give priority to rescue those in critical condition, then those with less serious injuries, then the dead.” 

Finally, the Civil Defence spokesman asserted that the mission of his crews will not end with the pause of the war. “The next mission will be to search for 11,000 missing people under the rubble of destroyed homes, whom rescue crews were unable to retrieve throughout the months of the war,” he said.