‘I’ve been afraid of my own memories’

In some of the thousands of funerals in Gaza in the last 15 months, the mourners have put a bright orange vest on the body.

The vests are generally well used and marked by dust, sometimes blood. They belong to the civil defense, the main emergency service of Gaza.

Throughout the Israeli bombing, the civil defense was responsible for taking out the living and the dead of the debris. Together with the Gaza ambulance service, rescue workers have assumed some of the most heartbreaking jobs in the strip.

And have paid a high price. On the first full day of peace on Monday, the agency said that 99 of its rescue workers had been killed and 319 injured, some with injuries that change their lives.

When the entire civil defense of yours, where possible, the dead vests are placed in their bodies.

“We put the vest there because our colleague sacrificed his soul in him,” said Nooh al-Shaghnobi, a 24-year-old rescue worker, in a telephone interview from Gaza City.

“We hope he shows God that this man did good with his life, that he saved others.”

Israel killed more than 47,000 Palestinians in Gaza during the conflict, mostly women and children, and wounded more than 111,000, according to the Hamas Ministry of Health, whose figures saw reliable by the UN. A recent study published by the Lancet Medical Journal found that the death toll during the first nine months of the war may have been underestimated by more than 40%.

The high fragile fire that entered into force last weekend is being celebrated. But for the rescue workers of the civil defense, the next phase of their work just begins.

The agency estimates that there are more than 10,000 people buried under the vast sea of ​​debris through Gaza. The figure is based on the information collected throughout the war on who was in each building destroyed by Israel, and who knows the agency that has already been recovered.

In areas completely occupied by Israeli forces during destruction, they do not have detailed information and depend on residents to help them. On Tuesday in the neighborhood of Tel El-Hawa of the city of Gaza, the rescue worker at-Shaghnobi found a man with information about the destination of an flattened apartment building.

“He told us that seven dead were recovered, but there was an older knight, a child and a baby left behind,” Al-Shaghnobi said.

“Fortunately there was a private property excavator nearby and we could dig the upper layer of debris,” he said. “And underneath we find three skeletons that coincided with the description.”

Al-Shaghnobi has accumulated a large number of followers during the war by sharing their experiences in social networks. Although pixelate some images, others show the horrors that he and other young rescuers have faced.

A video shows it under the rubble, carefully extracting the body of a baby around the body of another small child, which is alive. Other images sent to the BBC shows the extreme nature of rescue work.

“You should numb as time passes,” said Al-Shagnobi, during a change in Gaza City. “But I have worsened. I feel more pain, no less. I find it harder to face. I have seen 50 of my colleagues die in front of me. Who were Gaza can imagine this?”

As the first of the Israeli hostages was released from Gaza last week, in exchange for 90 Palestinians from Israeli prisons, Israeli authorities described the extensive psychological support that awaited the hostages that return.

But for those who experience horrors in Gaza, this support is extremely limited. None of the four rescue workers who spoke with the BBC this week since Gaza said they had been offered advice.

“We all need this,” said Mohammed Lafi, a 25 -year -old rescue worker in Gaza, “but nobody talks about that.”

Lafi, who has been with the agency for six years, has a small wife and son at home. “When I take the body of a baby from the rubble, I shout inside myself if it is the same age as my son. My body shakes.”

Even if the advice was widely available, “one year of therapy would not be enough for one day of this work,” said Abdullah Al-Majdalawi, a 24-year-old civil defense worker who lives with his parents in the city of Gaza.

Al-Majdalawi said that when he returned home among shifts, he did small jobs and tasks constantly, “because I have been afraid of my own memories.”

“Now I’m very lonely,” he said. “I really don’t talk to others about what I have seen. But I feel that my whole body is becoming tight, and I need some kind of therapy because things accumulate.”

Civil Defense workers had become seen from abroad as heroes, said Al-Majdalawi. “But they don’t see what is happening inside. I inside I’m fighting a war against myself.”

When the fire began, the new images of the interior of Gaza showed almost total destruction scenes, particularly in the north of the enclave. The Civil Defense spokesman, Mahmoud Basal, said the agency hoped to recover the remaining dead from under the debris within 100 days, but acknowledged that it was a difficult goal, because they practically do not have excavators and other heavy equipment still.

The civil defense has accused Israel to deliberately aim and destroy its vehicles and equipment on strikes, an accusation that Israel denies. The rescue workers told the BBC that they were currently working with simple manual tools such as Hammers and that they had few work vehicles. “We have so little team that we need another civil defense to rescue civil defense,” said Al-Majdalawi.

A spokesman for the agency said Friday that they had been able to recover only 162 bodies since the stop the fire almost a week ago.

The UN Coordination Office of the UN, Ocha, warned that the recovery of the bodies could take years, due to the lack of equipment, personnel and what estimates is 37 million tons of debris full of non -exploited pumps and hazardous materials Like asbestos.

The amount of time that many of the dead also hinder the identification process. In the European Hospital of Khan Young, in southern Gaza, people were looking for loved ones this week between the remains brought to the hospital and are placed outside in white sheets. In many cases, the only option was to look for shoes, clothing or other personal effects.

“I think I will recognize my son immediately, even if his face has no characteristics and is just a skeleton,” said Ali Ashour, a university professor, of his 18 -year -old son, Mahjoud.

“I will recognize it because I am his father and I know him better than a million people,” he said.

Ashour was still hosted that Mahjoud could have been taken to prisoners, she said, but planned to look for the dead every day until she knew. “Every time they bring more remains, I will come,” he said. “And if I see my son, I will get it out of the other bodies and take it.”

Nisreen Shaaban was looking for her 16 -year -old son Moatsem, who, according to her, had left her home in Beit Hanoun for 15 minutes and never returned.

“I have opened every shroud here looking for the clothes I was wearing, trying to smell its aroma,” he said. She was surrounded by human remains. “I feel that I am living in a cemetery,” he said. “It’s a city of horrors.”

The Civil Defense Agency estimates that almost 3,000 people may have been incinerated in the bombing, stealing some families from an end of their search. But there are many more than that they must still recover.

“These people must be found and honest,” said Al-Shaghnobi, the rescue worker. “This work awaits us. All we need is the team and we will.”

Muath al-Khatib and AMR Ahmad Tabash contributed to this report.