As Gaza war grinds on, volunteer lifeguards restore important public services

Palestinian men gather at a newly-opened beach facility in Deir el-Balah, central Gaza Strip, on 24 May 2024

Nagham Zbeedat reports in Haaretz on 6 June 2024:

As summer sets in, the scorching heat has prompted Gazans to visit the beach in an attempt to find relief – and a team of citizens to volunteer to protect them. Amid the apparent normalcy of lounging on the beach, the reality of war looms large, casting a shadow over the otherwise cherished activity.

In an official statement released on X, the Gaza municipality issued a safety warning to beachgoers, impressing on them the inherent risks posed by ongoing bombardment and attacks and a lack of professional lifeguards.

While urging citizens to prioritize safety measures for themselves and their children, it noted their “yearning for the beach as a testament to your will to live, to endure and to hold onto your homeland.”

In an effort to ensure visitors’ safety, a team of volunteer lifeguards has taken to patrolling the beaches. “With many displaced individuals, our mission is to safeguard them,” said one volunteer lifeguard in a video interview with Middle East Monitor. When asked whether they were equipped with rescue tools that could help their efforts, the young man confessed, “We have nothing. We keep walking along the beach in the sun.”

Expressing concern about the risk of potential drowning incidents with a lack of tools, the lifeguard highlighted the urgent need for assistance. Another lifeguard interviewed in a video posted to YouTube echoed this sentiment, urging qualified individuals to join their initiative. He elaborated that in response to the absence of rescue equipment, they’ve launched educational campaigns to raise awareness about the dangers of swimming in the sea.

Several similar volunteer initiatives have emerged across the Gaza Strip in the course of the ongoing war. For example, the Gaza municipality, in cooperation with youth councils affiliated with Save the Youth Future, the Al-Ihsan Volunteer Campaign, and other groups and organizations including Volunteers Without Borders as well as journalists and activists, have implemented a beach cleanup project. Young men and women participated in cleaning and organizing and collected and transported waste to designated containers.

In another volunteering campaign, engineers and employees of the Gaza municipality waded through wastewater to access the sewage control room, conducting an urgent repair of the sewage plant in the Al-Zaytoun neighborhood, which is the largest quarter of Gaza’s Old City.

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