Canadians told they’ll likely have to wait at least until Monday to escape war-torn Gaza | CBC News

The latest:

• Foreigners await word about leaving Gaza through Rafah crossing as exits remain on hold.
• Canadians told they’ll likely have to wait until at least Monday to escape the war-torn territory.
• Hamas-run Health Ministry says Israeli airstrike on refugee camp killed at least 40 people and wounded 34 others.
• U.S. secretary of state visits West Bank to meet with Palestinian leader Abbas.
• Palestinian aid organization reporting bombardment near Al-Quds hospital in Gaza City.

The Rafah crossing, along the border dividing the Gaza Strip from Egypt and the only land exit from the war-torn Palestinian territory that’s not controlled by Israel, remained closed Sunday, a day after evacuations were suspended.

That development has left hundreds of Canadians who want to leave Gaza in limbo. Global Affairs Canada (GAC) had previously told them they could be allowed into Egypt as early as Sunday, but the crossing has remained closed all weekend.

Samah Al-Sabbagh, speaking Sunday to CBC’s Rosemary Barton Live from London, Ont., said her 73-year-old father is on the Global Affairs list to leave Gaza, but he remains in Gaza and his health is deteriorating.

“He’s not eating, not sleeping. He’s in fear,” Al-Sebbagh said of her father, who went to northern Gaza on vacation near the end of September, a visit that “turned into a huge nightmare” when the Israel-Hamas war broke out four week ago.

“It’s a very frustrating time,” she said. Her family contacted Global Affairs on Friday and again on Saturday to get an update. At first, Canadian officials said he would be able to leave Monday, but on Saturday, the possible exit date was pushed to Tuesday.

Al-Sebbagh said another complication is that her father, who has lived in Canada for over 30 years, is in northern Gaza, and roads heading south to Rafah are either blocked or destroyed.

Dalia Salim, who lives in London, Ont., said she received an email from Global Affairs on Saturday evening that says evacuations for the Canadians wishing to cross are tentatively scheduled to begin as early as Monday. Salim has been trying to get her father out of Gaza for weeks.

Global Affairs says it is in contact with at least 516 Canadian citizens, permanent residents and family members who have been trapped in the besieged enclave.

GAC said on Friday that it has provided regional partners a list of close to 450 eligible Canadian citizens, permanent residents and family members who want to leave Gaza, and was telling them they may be able to cross into Egypt as early as Sunday.

Roughly 1,100 people have left the Gaza Strip through the Rafah crossing since Wednesday under an apparent agreement among the United States, Egypt, Israel and Qatar, which mediates with Hamas.

Palestinian Canadian Seham al-Batnejy and her daughter are among those waiting to cross.

“We’ve been struggling for five days going back and forth to the Rafah border crossing,” she said on Sunday while sitting in chairs at the border terminal, holding their Canadian passports.

“I swear to God, I come amid the strikes above our heads. We walk scared. Death haunts us every second.”

Evacuations of injured Gazans and foreign passport holders through the Rafah crossing were suspended after an Israeli strike on Friday on an ambulance in Gaza that was being used to transport injured people, according to Egyptian security sources and a medical source quoted by Reuters.

The Israeli military said, without showing evidence, the vehicle was carrying Hamas militants.

A spokesperson with the Palestinian Crossings Authority said officials in Gaza didn’t allow foreign passport holders to leave on the weekend because Israel was preventing the evacuation of Palestinian patients for treatment in Egypt.

Ashraf al-Qidra, spokesperson for the Gaza Health Ministry, has called for safe passage for 400 critically injured people to leave Gaza through Rafah and said hospitals had almost exhausted their last fuel supplies.

Dozens reported killed at refugee camp

Meanwhile, the Hamas-run Health Ministry said an Israeli airstrike on the Maghazi refugee camp in central Gaza
overnight killed at least 40 people and wounded 34 others.

Asked for comment, the Israeli military said they were waiting and gathering details.

Mohammad Al-Aloul, a photographer for Turkish news agency Anadolu, said he lost his four children, four of his brothers and their children in the strike, which destroyed his house.

“I was doing my job when I heard that an Israeli airstrike targeted a residential district in Maghazi and that there are martyrs and injured,” Al-Aloul told Reuters.

“I arrived in hospital and found out that my four children, including my only daughter, were martyred.”

With the death toll in Gaza mounting, pro-Palestinian demonstrators staged protests in cities around the world on Saturday, calling for an end to the nearly month-old war.

Elsewhere, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken made an unannounced visit to the occupied West Bank on Sunday and met with the Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas as part of a regional tour aimed at tackling the crisis.

Palestinian officials said Blinken flew in to Tel Aviv and travelled over land. Abbas has had little sway in Gaza, however, since the Hamas takeover of the enclave in 2007. The two met for about an hour but did not address the media.

Gaza health officials said on Sunday more than 9,700 Palestinians have been killed in the war, which began when Hamas fighters launched a surprise attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7. The attack left about 1,400 people dead, and more than 240 others were taken hostage, the Israeli government says.

Israel continued to strike the Gaza Strip by air, sea and ground overnight.

Israel says it is targeting Hamas, not civilians, and that the Islamist Palestinian group is using residents as human shields.

The Palestine Red Crescent Society said there was also intense bombardment, violent artillery explosions, and airstrikes in the vicinity of the Al-Quds Hospital in the Tal Al-Hawa area of southern Gaza City.

‘More pain’

Foreign ministers from Qatar, Saudi, Egypt, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates met Blinken in Amman on Saturday and pushed for Washington to persuade Israel to agree to a ceasefire.

“This war is just going to produce more pain for Palestinians, for Israelis, and this is going to push us all again into the abyss of hatred and dehumanization,” Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said at a press conference with Blinken. “So that needs to stop.”

However, Blinken dismissed the idea of a ceasefire, saying it would only benefit Hamas, allowing it to regroup and attack again.

Israel last month ordered all civilians to leave the northern part of the Gaza Strip and its military has since encircled Gaza City, where it is engaged in fierce street fighting with Hamas militants.

The Israeli Defence Forces said it has opened an evacuation corridor for Palestinians in northern Gaza to move south on Sunday. The four-hour window is until mid-afternoon local time Sunday. A similar plan on Saturday failed. Israel’s military said Hamas fired on their troops when they tried to open the route.

“Time has come, the state of Israel asks you to preserve your lives and to evacuate your homes from the areas of fighting,” said leaflets Israeli planes dropped on Gaza City, announcing the route.

U.S. special envoy David Satterfield said in Amman on Saturday that 800,000 to a million people had moved south, while 350,000 to 400,000 remained in and around Gaza City.

Living conditions in Gaza, already dire before the war, have deteriorated. Food is scarce, residents are drinking salty water and medical services are collapsing.

The UN humanitarian office estimates that nearly 1.5 million of Gaza’s 2.3 million people are internally displaced.