“I'm talking to you right now, but I don't know if I'll still be alive at the end of the day. » The broken voice on the other end of the line is that of Mohammad Abou Eljediane, 29 years old.
He lives crammed with 75 other people, including his wife, his son, his brother and several of his nephews and nieces aged three to 18, in a 50 square meter room in a UN school in Deir al-Balah in the south – central Gaza Strip.
“We live in conditions that are beyond deplorable,” he said in a telephone interview with Radio-Canada. There is no drinking water, no food. Death awaits us at any moment.
Mohammad and his brother Bakr are waiting for only one thing: the entry into force on January 9 of the temporary immigration measures announced by Federal Immigration Minister Marc Miller last month, in the hope of being reunited with their brother Ahmad. a permanent resident of Ontario.
Under this new policy, extended family members of Canadian citizens or permanent residents, such as grandparents, brothers and sisters, who are directly affected by the crisis in Gaza can obtain temporary residency in Canada.
The program offers three-year visas to up to 1,000 Palestinians who have family members willing to support them during their stay in Canada.
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Ahmad Abou Eljediane on his reunion with his wife Yara, who gave birth to their daughter during bombing raids in the Gaza Strip.
Photo: (Carlos Osorio/CBC)
Ahmad is blind and can't wait to find his brothers Mohammad and Bakr. His story caused a stir last November when CBC filmed his reunion at Toronto airport with his wife Yara and daughter Sila, who were born under the bombs on Oct. 23.
After the movement's unprecedented attack on Israeli soil on October 7, which, according to official Israeli figures, killed around 1,140 people, mostly civilians, Israel vowed to destroy Hamas. About 250 people were kidnapped and taken to Gaza, with about 100 of them released during a ceasefire in late November.
According to the latest Hamas Health Ministry report released on Thursday, 22,438 people, mostly women, youth and children, were killed on the Palestinian side in the Gaza Strip.
“I will do anything to bring my brothers here to Canada,” Ahmad confides to Radio-Canada. But I don't know if I can do it alone. This represents a huge financial responsibility as the cost of travel from Gaza to Cairo and then to Toronto is enormous.
He wishes his third brother, Ramzi, who is also blind, could also join him in Canada, but he is reminded of the complexity of the reality of Palestinians, who are divided between the Gaza Strip and the occupied West Bank, and none at all between the two Areas have freedom of movement.
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Palestinians fleeing the central Gaza Strip arrive in Rafah, in the southern Palestinian enclave, on December 26, 2023.
Photo: Getty Images / MOHAMMED ABED / AFP
Ramzi, a 42-year-old former journalist, lives in Ramallah in the West Bank after fleeing the Gaza Strip after Hamas seized power in 2006. He was shot in the leg by members of the Islamist movement.
Today he sells coffee in Ramallah and looks after his two children, aged 9 and 10, alone. His daughter Ola, 18, is in Deir al-Balah in the Gaza Strip with her uncles Mohammad and Bakr. His wife is stuck in Jordan, unable to join him in the West Bank or even return to her family in Gaza.
Not knowing whether he would be eligible for the new immigration measures announced by Ottawa, he took the initiative and began applying for a visit visa for himself and his wife. However, Ramzi still has to be patient because the processing time for his application could exceed seven months.
“I don't know what I'll do if my application is rejected,” he told Radio-Canada. Where will I go? How will I be reunited with my family?
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A man cries near the bodies of his relatives killed in an Israeli bombing in Deir al-Balah, December 20, 2023.
Photo: Getty Images / AFP
“The process is likely to be lengthy”
In Brantford, south of Toronto, Ont., Mohannad Shurrab, 49, has had a lighter heart since his wife Wafa and two children, ages 8 and 12, were able to leave Gaza last November thanks to evacuation efforts organized by the Canadian government.
Today he wants to bring his in-laws into the country. He is particularly worried about his sister-in-law, a refugee in the southern Gaza town of Rafah, who is pregnant. She will soon have to deliver her child via cesarean section, while the few hospitals in the area that are still operating are overwhelmed and lack resources.
Rafah, which had about 300,000 residents before the war began on October 7, has become the most densely populated area in the Gaza Strip. Many of the 1.9 million people in Gaza who fled the bombs sought refuge there, even as the city was not spared from Israeli attacks.
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Members of the Shurrab family at a graduation ceremony in Gaza. The grandparents are still stuck in the Palestinian enclave.
Photo: Photo provided by Mohannad Shurrab
“More than anything, we want to help them get out of there,” Mohannad tells Radio-Canada. “My wife is doing everything possible so that her family can come to Canada, but we are realistic and know that the process will probably be very slow,” he said, while emphasizing that the evacuation of his wife and children from Gaza is very complicated. We had to wait a whole month with no guarantee. It was very hard.
Bureaucracy is not necessarily suitable for extreme emergencies like in the Gaza Strip, where deaths occur every two minutes.
Fears of “relocation” of the Gaza population
However, Mr. Shurrab says he has mixed feelings about the emigration of Gazans, while several Israeli ministers openly promote the voluntary relocation of residents of the Palestinian enclave.
“Israel must work with Canada and other countries to allow as many Palestinian refugees as possible to emigrate from Gaza for a better life,” wrote Danny Danon, Israeli lawmaker and former Hebrew State representative to the United Nations , on December 22nd on the social network X.
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Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir called on Monday to facilitate the return of Jewish settlers to Gaza after the ongoing war and to “encourage” the Palestinian population to emigrate.
Photo: Getty Images / Amir Levy
According to Mr. Shurrab, Canada and other countries that open their doors to Gazans must simultaneously put pressure on Israel to guarantee Palestinians the right to return to their land.
He explains that when he was in Gaza, adults allowed to leave Israeli-besieged territory had to sign a document pledging not to return for at least a year. According to several Israeli media outlets, including Haaretz and The Times of Israel, such a policy was introduced in Israel in 2016.
Canada “does not prevent the return” of Gaza citizens
In an email, a spokesman for Canadian Immigration Minister Marc Miller said Canada will not tolerate the massive displacement of Palestinians.
In response to the situation in Gaza, our priority is to reunite families in a way that does not hinder their ability to return to Gaza when circumstances permit, said Miller's press secretary Bahoz Dara. Aziz.
She emphasizes the temporary nature of this new immigration program.
Vulnerable people desire refuge and aspire to be reunited with loved ones in Canada, while also striving to one day return to Gaza, she said in an email to Radio-Canada. Not only does this program do exactly that, it was designed with that in mind.
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No one can force more than two million people to emigrate, responded Elias Elkhoury, whose in-laws have sought refuge in the Catholic church in the destroyed city of Gaza.
I believe that the people of Gaza, even my wife's relatives, want to return home after the war. Gaza is their country and they do not want to leave it indefinitely, he said in a telephone interview.
Coming to Canada does not mean abandoning Gaza, he assures us.
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The Greek Orthodox Church of St. Porphyry in the Gaza Strip, where refugee Palestinians seek refuge, was damaged by an Israeli attack. (archive photo)
Photo: Portal / STRINGER
In a positive tone, he believes that the Palestinian people will rebuild everything that was destroyed. This will be an opportunity to build a new future. He hopes that reconstruction will also provide job opportunities for Gazans.
Yes, there is destruction and death everywhere at the moment, but we also have to think about the post-war period. We must keep hope.
However, in Deir al-Balah, hope is very rare.
If I leave here, I will not come back, says Bakr Abou Eljediane unequivocally, fearing for the lives of his children aged three, seven and twelve. I will not return to death, and Gaza is death.
His wish is to get out of the enclave with his family as quickly as possible.
We want to get out alive with the children, we want to live in safety and rebuild our lives somewhere else.
This is also the wish of his brother Ahmad, who lives in Brantford. “I do not support the emigration of Gazans, but I want my whole family to be safe,” he said. I may be lucky enough to be able to take my brothers and sisters to Canada, but many other people don't even have that opportunity.
“Canada has already helped me reunite with my wife and daughter and I firmly believe that Canada will not abandon the Palestinians,” Ahmad concludes confidently. Now I'm waiting for January 9th to submit a residency application for my brothers. We'll see what the future brings.