Canadians in the West Bank will be evacuated by bus to Jordan early this coming week, Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly says.
In an interview with The Globe and Mail from Jordan, she said this evacuation is expected to take place Tuesday.
About 100 Canadians living in the West Bank have registered with Ottawa and have been seeking assistance in leaving. It’s not clear how many will be taking the bus to Amman.
Canadians across Israel and the Palestinian territories have been asking Ottawa for assistance in evacuating since the militant group Hamas attacked Israel Oct. 7. Hamas is designated a terrorist group by the Canadian government.
Ms. Joly, who was wrapping up a visit to Israel and Jordan to assess the impact of the conflict, spoke to The Globe after talking to the Palestinian Authority and the Israeli government, as well as her counterpart in Jordan.
Her comments were made after news broke that plans to allow Canadians and other foreigners to leave Gaza through the southern Rafah border crossing were cancelled. The minister said the inability to evacuate people through the Rafah border crossing illustrates the need for a full-fledged humanitarian corridor to enable safe passage out of Gaza.
About 160 Canadians – or 40 families – have asked Ottawa for help leaving the territory that is under siege from Israel, the minister said. Israeli officials have said Hamas, which controls Gaza, is preventing foreigners from leaving.
“That’s why we absolutely need a humanitarian corridor where civilians can leave and aid can enter,” Ms. Joly said.
“Gaza is one of the worst places on Earth to be right now,” the minister later told reporters in a virtual press conference Saturday afternoon.
Meanwhile, the fifth and sixth Canadian military flights evacuating Canadians, permanent residents and their spouses and children from Tel Aviv have left – taking their passengers to Athens.
Ms. Joly warned Canadians still remaining to take up the Canadian military flight offer because these would not continue indefinitely. “My message is please if you have a seat on a plane, take it because we never know how the situation can evolve.”
The minister said that, as of Saturday, four Canadians are counted as having died in the conflict and three remained missing.
She said she’s working with allies to do what Ottawa can to help ensure the conflict doesn’t escalate.
Ms. Joly cautioned Canadians in neighbouring Lebanon to register their presence there with the Department of Global Affairs. She said that at last count there were 14,000 on the department’s registry. She noted Ottawa had recently updated the travel advisory for Lebanon to counsel people to avoid all travel there.
She updated the numbers for how many Canadians in Israel had registered their presence there with Global Affairs, saying the figure had now reached 6,800.
About 35,000 Canadians live in Israel today and many have remained there despite past conflicts.
She said Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen has assured her “that Canadians would be able to leave Gaza.” She said she would be making calls Saturday to ensure “this is still the case.”
Ms. Joly, who said she was forced to seek refuge in a Tel Aviv bomb shelter during her visit there because of incoming rockets, said Mr. Cohen showed her “very graphic” videos of the effects of the attack on Israelis – evidence she said “I will never forget.” She called the Hamas onslaught “the biggest terrorist attack against Israel in 50 years.”
However, she voiced strong concern for the humanitarian toll that Israel’s siege of Gaza is taking on Palestinians, noting that a UN official in Jordan had warned her that a desalination plant in the territory had run out of fuel.
“He told me that there was only 24 hours left before Gaza would run out of water, because there’s no fuel for their plants that actually transform seawater into freshwater,” she said.
Ms. Joly said Canada is extremely worried about civilians in both Israel and in the Palestinian territories and the impact of the Israeli blockade on Gaza. “A civilian is a civilian is a civilian, so civilian lives, may they be Israeli or Palestinian, both are important, and both must be protected. And both are equal.”
The Foreign Affairs Minister spoke to her counterpart at the Palestinian Authority Saturday about the need to find ways to get humanitarian aid to Gaza and the West Bank. “Concretely speaking, the only organization that can provide help to Gaza right now once a humanitarian corridor is in place is the United Nations.”
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau also expressed concern over the situation facing civilians in Gaza.
“The rapid and unimpeded access of relief via a humanitarian corridor is essential to address the urgent needs of civilians in Gaza. International law, including humanitarian and human-rights law, must be respected and civilians, journalists, humanitarian workers, and medical personnel must be protected,” he said in a statement. “Canadians and people around the world must be steadfast in our support for the protection of civilians, both Israeli and Palestinian.”
Rehab Nazzal, a 60-year-old Canadian Palestinian artist currently doing research and teaching in Bethlehem, in the West Bank, said the city was confined. “They blocked it, the Israelis, from all sides. We can’t leave. Even food cannot get in,” and gas stations are empty.
People in Bethlehem are afraid, she said, and stacking up on what supplies they can find. “We don’t know what to expect,” she said, but she is planning to stay as she does not want to abandon her home country and her students.
Ms. Nazzal is more worried about her friends trapped in Gaza, fellow artists and subjects with whom she has worked over the past few years. “I call, some of them answer, others don’t,” and she cannot tell if it’s because they have been killed by Israeli strikes or because their phones have no battery left since Israel cut off the power supply.
She said friends had lost their house to bombings, while others had to give medicine to their children to get them to sleep. “They’re civilians, they have nothing to do with anything.”