‘Our government has failed us’ say Londoners with Canadian family members trapped in Gaza | CBC News
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Some Londoners with family members who are Canadian citizens stuck in Gaza say they feel let down by the federal government who has not yet been able to get their loved ones out of the besieged region and across the border into Egypt.
Other foreign passport holders have started to leave but Canadian names have not been on the lists of approved individuals. On Friday morning, CBC News said sources have said evacuations of Canadians out of Gaza should start Sunday.
“Everyday, we’re calling my dad just making sure that he’s OK, that he’s still alive,” said Samah Al-Sabbagh, whose elderly father is trapped in northern Gaza.
“I have to answer to my father every time I speak to him and he asks what’s going on and why the Canadians aren’t allowed to leave yet, and I’m sitting here like ‘What do I tell him?'”
Al-Sabbagh said her dad, Akram, 73, has been a Canadian citizen for 32 years, and went to visit his brother in Gaza at the end of September. He’s had to relocate multiple times since the Israel-Hamas war started on Oct. 7.
More than 300 foreign passport holders and more than 70 seriously injured Palestinians were allowed to leave Gaza at the Rafah border crossing on Wednesday, for the first time since the war began.
Global Affairs has said it expects foreign and dual nationals will be able to leave Gaza on a country-by-country basis. Canada will be assigned a specific departure date for some 450 Canadians who are registered with the department in Gaza and West Bank.
Al-Sabbagh worries Akram still won’t be get to the border in southern Gaza, even after Canadians can start crossing, because roads connecting the north and south have been completely destroyed, she said,
She also hasn’t received any answers from Global Affairs, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs or the Canadian embassy in Egypt, Al-Sabbagh added
“I’m starting to lose hope,” she said tearfully. “I’m on the phone with them everyday asking to find a way to get him to the south but they tell me ‘Sorry, he has to find his own way.”
‘Feeling that we don’t matter’
“We continue to work around the clock to secure a window for Canadians to exit Gaza. We are communicating directly with Canadians, giving them the latest information regarding the situation,” said a statement from Global Affairs Canada on Thursday.
The department added that Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly “is in contact with both her Israeli and Egyptian counterparts and our embassies are pushing through their channels as well.”
Reem Sultan represented London in a group of Palestinian-Canadians who met with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in Toronto, Wednesday, to share their families’ stories and asked Trudeau to call for an immediate ceasefire.
“Our main plea was for him to call for a ceasefire so we can get our loved ones out because they can die at any moment. There’s no safe place in Gaza and at any moment we can receive the news that they’ve perished,” Sultan told CBC News Network on Thursday.
“Everyone in Gaza is fighting for their life. There’s constant bombardments, it’s just pure hell.”
WATCH | Londoner with family in Gaza on conversation with Trudeau:
Featured VideoReem Sultan has family and friends in Gaza – a place of joy when she visited last summer, but now a place of war. She talks about her fears and what she had to say to the Prime Minister last night, in this conversation on CBC News Network.
Sultan said Trudeau listened to the group’s demands but she is not sure what the outcome of meeting will be.
Anger and frustration is building for those awaiting their loves ones to leave Gaza, and it’s especially hurtful knowing that citizens from other countries managed to get out, Sultan said.
“It’s this feeling that we don’t matter,” she said. “Everyone [else] got their citizens out, it’s that part we’re trying to understand and I feel like our government has failed us.”
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