As the war in Israel continues, Sullivan County's new Public Safety Commissioner has just returned from a volunteer deployment there. Scott Schulte was working as a volunteer firefighter in southern Israel on the heels of the October 7 attack by Hamas as part of a mission by the Emergency Volunteers Project. To explain what he saw there, Schulte spoke with WAMC’s Ian Pickus.
I take it you've been over on missions like this a number of times. Was it different this time?
Yeah. In the past, we've been to Israel for both training trips, as well as deployments related to natural disasters and terrorist activity, but we've not seen anything to this scale in the past. This was certainly a new experience, but a rather challenging one for the organization. We needed to fill quite a number of firefighter roles in a very short amount of time, and the logistics surrounding Ben-Gurion’s closure early on made our deployment delayed a few days. So we had to be ready to hit the ground running as soon as we arrived.
What kind of work were you and your cohort doing?
So we had a series of teams established, and they were placed strategically throughout Israel based on our anticipation of what might occur as the conflict evolves. So we put people in places like Haifa, Jerusalem and the Tel Aviv area, knowing that those would be likely targets for a larger event associated with Iran-backed factions. My team was located in Ashkelon, a few kilometers from the Gaza border, to deal with the initial ongoing issue with both terrorists infiltrated still in the country and not yet neutralized, as well as the raft attacks. So we supplemented the Israelis, we were working out of a community center that was converted into a temporary fire station, because the civilians were all locked down in their homes. And we worked a four-person engine crew, two Israelis and two Americans on each engine; myself, a firefighter from Missouri and two firefighters from Texas. And we operated as a traditional firefighting team, responding to regular fires as well as responding to rocket strikes and similar war-related incidents.
Can you just tell us what it looks like now, a few weeks after the Oct. 7 attacks?
So it really hasn't changed a lot in the last couple of weeks. Believe it or not, the conflict is still in full throated attack. Yesterday, there were there was an attempt by Hamas to infiltrate again, they were able to get terrorists in both by ground and by sea. They were fortunately neutralized fairly quickly by the IDF, and the rocket barrages were quite intense throughout the country yesterday, so it is ebbing and flowing. There were a couple of quiet days that we had in the middle of our deployment while the President and the governor were in Israel, thankfully, but before and after, it was quite consistent. And it maintains that same image today, rocket attacks throughout the day, depending on where you are in the country, both in the north and the south. And the emotional toll (on) the firefighters, the civilians, the IDF, every single person in that country knows or is related to someone that was murdered. They haven't even approached the point where they can begin to mourn yet, they're still in a full response phase. Many of them haven't stopped working since the sevens, and so they're struggling with the ability to kind of comprehend what happened and mourn, but also continuing to fight this ongoing attack that doesn't seem to be letting up.
I think Israelis have become inured to a certain degree to rocket attacks. It's part of life depending on where you live. Were there any times where you were in danger during this mission?
Well, that's certainly the case for them all too often. When something occurred that I was surprised to see, the response from the Israelis was ‘This is life in Israel.’ Yeah, there was quite a few close calls, we had a building struck directly across the street from the fire station this past Friday. It was a rather heavy barrage that went on for a while, struck quite a number of apartments, houses, cars, and open spaces throughout the city of Ashkelon, the southern portion. And those continue to occur even when we're out on the scene of a rocket attack, so we have to be aware of that. And the all too famous supposed strike on a hospital in Gaza that's all over the news that was caused, of course, by a terrorist rocket that fell short, we were actually in that strike as well that that strike, that occurred around 7pm that day. A good portion of those rockets landed in Ashkelon as well, and we happened to be en route to a call and we had to bail out of the fire truck as they came in.
There is a humanitarian crisis unfolding in Gaza as we speak. President Biden has taken pains to distinguish between Hamas and the Palestinian civilians living there; 1-2 million people. As a first responder, did any of your work involve responding to the humanitarian needs on the other side of the line?
They did not. That portion of Gaza has been evacuated, although obviously the evacuation isn't complete, and it's quite a number of people struggling to find safe homes. But that ordered evacuation precluded us from being able to enter the northern portion of Gaza. But we certainly are also well aware. In past deployments we've worked in areas around the West Bank and Gaza, and operated at scenes involving Palestinians. So our efforts are not ignorant of the needs of all people, and that's the driving factor for all first responders. So our work is to help whoever needs it, so long as they are civilians in need.
Where does your interest in Israel come from? You've been on many missions through this group, the Emergency Volunteers Project.
Yeah, it started as nothing more than a bit of intrigue and excitement; the idea of going to the Middle East to learn new firefighting tactics, new approaches to terrorism. Those types of things just struck a chord as being something kind of unfamiliar and a new page in my career, and before long it quickly turned into a personal effort for me. I met firefighters and their families, they took us in immediately as if we were friends and family. To this day, it's been 13 years I've been with the organization and still, some of my closest friends in the world are Israelis that I met through this organization. And one of my closest friends was actually supposed to be at my home on the 7th when this all happened, and he had to take his family and get back to Israel as fast as possible. And ironically enough, I had said to him on (a) Friday night when he was coming to my house, ‘Well, if this doesn't work out, I'll come to Israel,’ as a joke and sure enough, four days later, he and I were side-by-side.
You have close ties to the New Paltz area. Now you're working in Sullivan County. These are places where there are a lot of Jewish people and Jewish buildings, synagogues, people with close ties to Israel. Does it make you think any differently about safety back in New York having just gotten back from Israel?
Yeah it strikes close to home, when you think about your friends and your neighbors that have the potential for experiencing the same terror both here in the United States as well as in Israel, if they're back home they're visiting. So it certainly adds a very personal element. We continued to work with our federal partners in law enforcement, the state police, the sheriff's office very, very closely while I was in Israel, communicating to make sure that we had really effective coverage and situational awareness back in Sullivan County. So that was a really great opportunity where we had to use our partnerships and our connections to get all the resources and intelligence that we need to continue to protect the Sullivan County residents, even when I was abroad.
Any plans to go back?
At this point, we have three successive waves of firefighters organized and in line to go. Certainly in the event that they need additional resources or in the hopefully unlikely situation that it escalates to a larger conflict, then I think there will certainly be a need for any qualified and willing firefighters and I think at that point, I'll have no choice but to go back and do what I can to help.
