When disaster strikes, the first responders are often the people already there. They are not always soldiers, firefighters, or paramedics. They are neighbors, local volunteers, community security teams, and ordinary citizens who refuse to wait for help. Increasingly, they are the backbone of emergency response worldwide.
Take Texas in July 2025. Torrential rains turned the Guadalupe River into a raging torrent, flooding streets and isolating homes. Families clung to rooftops, trapped by water that moved faster than rescue teams could. Official responders were overwhelmed. Yet thousands survived thanks to the work of civilian volunteers and the extraordinary cooperation between international and local teams. ZAKA Search & Rescue, an Israeli organization accustomed to operating in conflict zones, deployed a high-level flood-mapping unit to aid Texas A&M Task Force 1. Using real-time satellite imagery, they guided crews around debris and dangerous currents, even identifying likely locations of victims. Without this civilian-led coordination, the death toll could have been far higher.
This story is not an exception. Across the globe, the same pattern is emerging: civilians are no longer spectators in crises, they are the first and often the most critical responders. In Ukraine, since Russia’s invasion began in 2022, volunteers have risked their lives to rescue civilians from collapsed buildings after missile strikes. Neighborhood networks in Kharkiv and Dnipro organize evacuations and deliver aid long before international teams arrive. Local groups like the “White Angels” have become lifelines for people trapped near front lines. Many responders operate with minimal training, learning under fire in the ruins of their own communities. Their courage is both inspiring and heartbreaking.
Israel has faced a similar reality. On October 7, 2023, when Hamas militants attacked southern Israel, army units could not reach affected towns in time. The first on the scene were civilian medics, community security volunteers, and search-and-rescue teams armed only with radios and basic trauma kits. Many ran toward gunfire and did not return. For months afterward, as Hezbollah rockets struck northern towns, it was again local volunteers who stabilized communities, evacuated the wounded, and saved lives.
What these examples demonstrate is urgent and clear: traditional emergency systems are outdated. Governments, aid agencies, and international organizations still operate on the assumption that trained teams will arrive from elsewhere to take control. In reality, the critical window in any disaster is the first minutes and hours, the period in which only those already on site can act. Ignoring this fact puts lives at risk.
Civilians on the front line need more than moral courage. They need training, equipment, communications access, and integration into wider emergency systems. Without these, they act as heroes at enormous personal risk. They also face psychological and emotional trauma, survivor’s guilt, injuries, and post-event stress, often without support. When a rescue fails or a life is lost, they are left to carry the burden alone. This is not just unfair, it is strategically unsound.
Jewish tradition teaches, “Do not stand idly by the blood of your neighbor.” This is more than a moral principle, it is a call to action that drives thousands of volunteers. From medics in Sderot to a farmer in Texas pulling strangers from a flooded car, or a Ukrainian paramedic treating patients in a powerless basement clinic, civilians are the embodiment of that mandate. But courage alone is insufficient. To save lives at scale, it must be paired with structure, recognition, and support.
The Texas floods provide a model for what effective cooperation can look like. The combination of local volunteers and international expertise, such as Israeli flood mappers guiding American crews, allowed the response to be faster, smarter, and more effective. This type of integration, civilian, professional, and international, should not be a one-off, it should be the standard.
Governments must formalize the role of civilian responders. They need equipment, secure communication channels, training, and post-event mental health care. Families of those killed in service must be recognized and supported, regardless of whether their loved ones wore a uniform, a reflective vest, or just the clothes they had on that day.
Non-governmental organizations and community networks also deserve full recognition as part of emergency systems, not auxiliary charities. Their local knowledge of geography, culture, and community needs is indispensable during the first chaotic hours of any disaster. Treating them as secondary actors wastes the most critical asset in any emergency, people on the ground who know the terrain and the population intimately.
The world has changed. Emergencies are no longer confined to distant battlefields or predictable disaster zones. Civilians are no longer bystanders. They are the first line of defense, the ones who save lives when seconds matter.
It is time governments, aid organizations, and international systems caught up with this reality. The heroes are not always in uniform. They are our neighbors, our friends, our family. Recognizing, equipping, and supporting them is no longer optional, it is a moral and practical imperative.
Dubi Weissenstern serves as CEO of ZAKA Search and Rescue. Founded to honor the dead in accordance with religious tradition, ZAKA Search and Rescue has evolved into a full-scale emergency response network, with over 4,000 trained volunteers operating 24/7 across Israel to honor the dead, aid the living and bring dignity in times of devastation. Today, it operates a wide range of units — from rapid medical response and urban search and rescue to water recovery and culturally sensitive burial teams serving Israel’s Jewish, Bedouin, Arab and Druze communities.