Palestinian rescuers see China’s Blue Sky amid the bomb blasts of Israel-Gaza war

China’s Blue Sky Rescue has been helping train Palestinians in urban search and rescue operations in bid to help save more lives

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Rescuers from Palestinian Civil Defence have been trained by Blue Sky Rescue in China. Photo: AFP

Published: 8:00pm, 15 Dec 2024Updated: 7:59pm, 16 Dec 2024

In the eastern city of Changshu, six Palestinians have spent two weeks being trained by a team from China’s Blue Sky Rescue in urban search and rescue operations.

They were taught how to shore up collapsed buildings, cut through walls, search for victims and safely evacuate survivors.

It is over a year since the Israel-Gaza war began, and in that time more than 44,000 Palestinians – including at least 88 of the search and rescue team’s colleagues – have been killed. So when they were invited to send a delegation for training in China, they jumped at the chance to help save more lives.

The search and rescue team of the Palestinian Civil Defence first met China’s Blue Sky rescuers back in February 2023, amid the rubble of Malatya, Turkey, as they worked side by side to find survivors after a devastating 7.8 magnitude earthquake hit eastern Turkey and Syria. China sent more than 200 members of its grass-roots rescue organisation to assist in the wake of the disaster.

Blue Sky Rescue team members on the rubble in Malatya, Turkey, in February 2023, after the region was hit by a magnitude 7.8 earthquake. Photo: Ming

That shared experience has led to a growing relationship between the two teams.