Emergency Responders Have Stopped Operating in Northern Gaza

On Thursday morning, when an Israeli airstrike targeted a home in northern Gaza, local residents reported that there were no emergency responders or medical teams present to help rescue those trapped in the debris.

Instead, Mazen Ahmed, a displaced person now living in Beit Lahia where the strike occurred, along with other neighbors, had to sift through the rubble themselves to search for survivors. They discovered at least one body.

“We tried to rescue as best as we could,” he said in a voice message from a cemetery where victims of the latest Israeli airstrikes were being buried. “There were no stretchers, no rescuers, no emergency personnel.”

More than two weeks ago, Gaza’s Civil Defense, the territory’s primary emergency service, announced that it had been forced to halt rescue operations in the northern region due to attacks by the Israeli military on its staff and the destruction of its equipment.

According to Gaza’s Health Ministry, dozens of Palestinians have been killed in the past month since Israel intensified military operations in northern Gaza and ordered widespread evacuations, claiming it was targeting a reorganized Hamas presence in the area.

On Thursday, the Israeli military issued a statement claiming it was targeting what it described as terrorist infrastructure in Beit Lahia, a mixed agricultural and residential area near the Israeli border that has been the site of ongoing clashes for the past four weeks. The military did not address reports of a strike on a home in the area.