When an Israeli airstrike hit a home in northern Gaza early Thursday, residents said, there were no paramedics or emergency medical workers around to help pull out people trapped in the rubble.
Instead, Mazen Ahmed said he and other neighbors in Beit Lahia had to dig through the debris by themselves. They found at least one body.
“We went out to try to rescue on our own to the extent of our abilities,” Mr. Ahmed said on Thursday, speaking by voice message from a cemetery where those killed in the latest Israeli airstrikes were being buried. “There were no stretchers, there were no rescuers, there were no emergency responders.”
More than two weeks ago, Gaza’s Civil Defense, the main emergency service in the Palestinian territory, said it was forced to cease rescue operations in the north because of attacks by the Israeli military on its members and destruction of its equipment.
Israel stepped up a military offensive in northern Gaza over the past month and ordered widespread evacuations of the area, saying it was trying to eliminate a regrouped Hamas presence there. Troops, tanks and armed drones have bombarded the area almost daily, sending tens of thousands of residents fleeing and killing hundreds, according to local and Israeli officials.
Civil Defense said Friday that 2,000 people had been killed, though it does not differentiate between civilians and combatants. The Israeli military said last week that it had killed 750 armed fighters, and that it does not count civilians. It did not immediately respond to a request for an updated death toll.
On Thursday, the Israeli military said it was operating against what it called “terrorist infrastructure” in Beit Lahia, an agricultural and residential area on the Israeli border where the Israeli military has been fighting for the past four weeks.
The military did not immediately respond to a request for comment about accusations that it is deliberately targeting emergency medical workers. Nor did it comment on reports in Palestinian state media that it had struck a home in Beit Lahia where Mr. Ahmed and his neighbors helped rescue people on Thursday.
Rescue operations are limited. The Palestinian Red Crescent, one of the few aid groups still functioning in northern Gaza, said its three ambulances can reach parts of Jabaliya, another northern area that, like Beit Lahia, has been heavily bombarded by Israel recently.
The lack of emergency responders means residents are not only left to dig out neighbors from under the rubble, but they are also rushing casualties to one of the last functioning hospitals in northern Gaza in private vehicles or on donkey carts.
“We civilians brought planks of wood, doors and shelves, and we would put the injured on them and every four or six people would take them to the hospital,” Mr. Ahmed said. At least one person they pulled from the rubble was dead, and they managed to rescue six others and take them to the hospital, he added.
Last week, a joint statement signed by the heads of 15 United Nations and humanitarian agencies — including UNICEF, the World Food Program and the World Health Organization — called on Israel to stop its “assault on Gaza and on the humanitarians trying to help.” On the situation in north Gaza, it went on to say, “Rescue teams have been deliberately attacked and thwarted in their attempts to pull people buried under the rubble of their homes.”
Fidaa al-Alol, 22, whose family has refused to flee northern Gaza for the south, said the attacks had made the already dire humanitarian crisis in the north much worse.
“We would hear the screams of people for an hour or two under the rubble until they died,” she said by voice message, describing how people whose homes were hit by airstrikes would call out for rescue. “The situation is catastrophic in Beit Lahia.”
Khareef Khalil, also a resident of Beit Lahia, said a rocket struck one of his relatives near the entrance to his home a few days ago.
“No one could transport him out of the neighborhood because there were drones in the air,” said the 21-year-old, whose family has not left despite warnings from the Israeli military. “He was clinging to life for several hours on the ground, and he died because there were no emergency or medical personnel,” he added.
“There is no semblance of life,” he said. “There is no municipality, there are no hospitals, there are no civil defense.”
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