Civil defense workers in northern Gaza out of service, unable to reach site of major airstrike

Israel’s bombardment of 11 residential buildings in Jabalia camp is thought to have killed over 100 people on Thursday, Gaza’s Palestinian civil defense authority said in a statement.

Civil defense workers said they were unable to reach the site, after the authority announced on Wednesday that it was suspending its services due to its inability to continue providing them after 20 consecutive days of Israeli aggression on the northern part of the Gaza Strip.

“Citizens are facing great difficulty in transporting the martyrs,” the civil defense said on Thursday, describing the incident as a “massacre” on Hoja Street. The statement said, “there is no one to intervene to save them.”

Gaza Civil Defense spokesperson Mahmoud Basal told Mada Masr earlier on Thursday that the authority has halted its services completely in northern Gaza due to the ongoing assault.

Israeli forces had issued a direct summons to civil defense workers in the northern part of the strip on Wednesday.

Loudspeakers mounted on Israeli quadcopters ordered civil defense teams to abandon all their vehicles and work equipment and head to the Sheikh Zayed area of northwest Gaza on Wednesday, said Basal, noting that displaced civilians are being detained in the area. All communication has since been lost with the personnel arrested in Sheikh Zayed, he said, including those injured.

Three other civil defense members were targeted later on Wednesday by an Israeli drone in Beit Lahia, Basal added. Contact with them was lost after they were injured and their fate remains unknown.

Israeli forces have also arrested five civil defense personnel in North Gaza Governorate, taking them to an undisclosed location, Basal said.

Israeli tanks also targeted the only remaining fire truck in northern Gaza, completely destroying it and rendering the civil defense workers unable to respond to blazing buildings, he said.

He described the situation as catastrophic, with trapped citizens now deprived of any humanitarian services.

The civil defense is still receiving many calls about injured and killed individuals left lying in the streets, but the civil defense is unable to rescue them, Basal said.

The Israeli military’s current strategy in Jabalia camp is to clear it out block by block, Basal said, while thousands of citizens remain trapped in their homes, facing extreme danger.

Israeli troops invaded the northern part of Gaza in the beginning of October, moving northeast to isolate Gaza City in the northwest from Jabalia and its camp, as well as Beit Lahia to Jabalia’s northeast.

Aid and supplies are unable to reach the area, while many residents of the north are trapped in their homes fearing constant Israeli fire at street level. UNRWA has estimated that around 60,000 have been displaced from their homes by the campaign thus far.