On The Reality Of The Civil Defense Force After 470 Days Of Israeli Aggression And Genocide In The Gaza Strip

January 20, 2025

Praise be to Allah for granting safety to our people after 470 days of Israeli aggression against the people of Gaza, and peace and blessings be upon Mohammad, the master of martyrs, who was sent as a mercy to all worlds.

First, we pray for mercy for the souls of our noble martyrs who lost their lives during the Israeli genocide, including our fellow humanitarian workers, and we wish a speedy recovery to the injured and wounded.

First: Human and Material Losses

- The Civil Defense Force has endured significant material and human losses due to deliberate Israeli targeting. A total of 99 personnel were martyred, and 319 were injured, with dozens of sustaining permanent disabilities.

- 27 personnel from the Civil Defense Force have been detained by the Israeli occupation forces, including the Director of Civil Defense in North Gaza and the directors of the three centers in the governorate. We remain unaware of their conditions after they were taken to unknown locations.

Overall, the Civil Defense Force has suffered a 48% loss in human resources (martyrs, injured, or detained).

- Of 21 facilities, 17 centers and headquarters were deliberately targeted by the Israeli military: 14 were completely destroyed, while 3 sustained partial damage.

- 85% of Civil Defense vehicles were destroyed, with 61 vehicles out of a total of 72 damaged or completely destroyed. This includes fire trucks, rescue vehicles, rapid response units, and ambulances.

Second: Missions carried out by our crews from 7 October 2023 until today.

- Since the beginning of the genocide, we received more than 500,000 distress calls, with approximately 50,000 left unanswered due to fuel shortages or the inability to safely access areas under threat due to direct targeting by the Israeli occupation.

- Our teams retrieved over 38,300 martyrs from targeted locations, homes, and buildings across all governorates.

- We rescued approximately 97,000 injured and transported 11,206 critical medical cases to hospitals.

- Our teams successfully extinguished 22,403 fires caused by strikes on residential areas, commercial buildings, agricultural lands, and more.

- We safely evacuated 42,000 from areas and homes deemed too dangerous to remain.

- Approximately 2,840 martyrs’ remains were vaporized, leaving no trace due to the Israeli military's use of weapons that generate temperatures between 7,000 - 9,000 degrees Celsius, incinerating everything at the point of impact.

- Our teams are still tasked with locating the remains of more than 10,000 martyrs buried under rubble from destroyed buildings and homes. These remain unregistered in martyr statistics.

- The occupation army prevented our teams from working in the Rafah crossing area, Tal Al-Sultan area in Rafah governorate, Beit Lahiya, Beit Hanoun ,and Jabalia camp in North Gaza governorate, North Nuseirat area, and eastern areas of Central governorate, South Al-Zaytoun and Tal Al-Hawa, where hundreds of bodies of martyrs have not been reached yet.

- Today, 470 days after the Israeli genocidal war on the Gaza Strip, the civil defence apparatus in the Gaza Strip needs to be rehabilitated, rebuilt, and provided with the necessary human resources, capabilities, and equipment to work during the coming period to deal with the massive destruction caused by the genocidal war for more than 15 months.

- We call on neighboring and allied countries to deploy civil defense teams and equipment to Gaza to support our efforts in responding to the unprecedented devastation caused by over 15 months of war.

- We call for the entry of civil defense teams with their equipment from brotherly countries to the Gaza Strip in order to support us in carrying out our duty to deal with the catastrophic reality left by the war, which exceeds the capacity of the civil defense apparatus in the Gaza Strip.

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