(Ottawa) A small group of Liberal and Conservative MPs are on a cross-party trip to Israel to show solidarity with the country as it struggles to recover from a horrific Hamas attack and is under heavy surveillance over the number of civilian deaths in the Gaza Strip .
Posted at 12:58 p.m.
Liberal MP Anthony Housefather of Quebec said the trip was planned to meet with survivors of the Oct. 7 attack in which Hamas militants killed about 1,200 people and took about 240 hostage in Israel.
Meanwhile, Canadians whose loved ones are stuck in Gaza are still waiting to hear whether new people with ties to Canada were allowed to enter Egypt through the Rafah border crossing last weekend.
A daily list from the General Authority for Gaza Crossings and Borders, which includes the names of foreigners eligible to travel, listed 135 people with ties to Canada as of Sunday.
Global Affairs Canada had not yet said Monday whether those people had managed to leave the war-torn enclave, and there were no Canadian names on the list.
However, Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly announced on Sunday evening that 84 more Canadians were able to leave the Gaza Strip for Egypt via the Rafah border crossing.
Global Affairs’ latest update on Friday shows that 376 Canadians, permanent residents and their relatives have so far been able to leave the Palestinian territory through the Rafah border crossing. This number increases to 460 if one includes the additional 84 Canadians who were able to leave Gaza.
After the October 7 attacks, Israel declared war on Hamas. The Jewish state launched a campaign of airstrikes, cutting off food, fuel, water and supplies deliveries to Gaza, home to 2.3 million Palestinians.
The territory’s health authorities say more than 12,700 people have been killed in the response so far, two-thirds of them women and children. Another 2,700 people are missing.
On Monday there was heavy fighting around the Indonesian hospital in the north of the Gaza Strip, which has been housing thousands of patients and displaced people for weeks.
The fighting comes a day after the World Health Organization evacuated 31 premature babies from Gaza City’s Shifa Hospital, the largest in the region. These babies were among more than 250 seriously ill or injured patients trapped there days after Israeli forces entered the hospital grounds.
Israel says Hamas is using civilians and hospitals as shields, while its critics say Israel’s continued siege and airstrikes constitute collective punishment against Palestinians.
With the Associated Press