More than 260 Canadians on list to leave Gaza Friday unable to exit

Global Affairs Canada says none of the Canadians on Friday’s list of foreign nationals approved to leave the Gaza Strip were able to exit.

There were 266 Canadian citizens, permanent residents and their family members on the day’s list were allowed to cross into Egypt at the Rafah border crossing.

Officials at the crossing had been expected to start processing the latest group of people looking to flee the Israel-Hamas conflict Friday morning.

“Canada does not determine when or how many persons can cross each day,” Global Affairs said in a statement on Friday. “As the situation is quite fluid and unpredictable, Canadians should be prepared for significant delays and unexpected closures at the Rafah border.”

Thirty-two people connected to Canada were able to leave the Gaza Strip on Thursday, after an initial 75 citizens, permanent residents and family members made the trip on Tuesday.

Some have now arrived back in Canada while others are still in Cairo.

No Canadians were able to cross via official means on Wednesday because of what a U.S. State Department spokesperson described as a “security circumstance.”

Global Affairs Canada said that as of late Thursday, 550 more people were still hoping to leave the territory.

SECURING THE RELEASE OF CANADIAN HOSTAGES

Meanwhile, the department is hinting at the possibility of Canadians being among those captured by Hamas in the brazen Oct. 7 attack in Israel.

Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly said Thursday that Canada’s top official for consular cases was in the Middle East to try to help secure the release of hostages being held by Hamas.

That role is to “engage with government representatives and others to seek the release of Canadian hostages abroad, including in the Middle East,” the department said.

Joly has long refused to say whether Canadians were among the hostages, an effort to avoid complicating the overall rescue effort. Ottawa refers only to “two Canadians who are missing” in the region, citing privacy considerations.

Foreign nationals in the territory are trying to flee a worsening humanitarian situation and constant Israeli airstrikes. The bombardment is in retaliation for the Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas militants, who killed 1,400 Israelis and kidnapped 239 people.

The images of airstrikes in Gaza have already fuelled a number of tense protests in Canada, and Trudeau said Friday he’s concerned about Jews and Muslims being targeted.

He didn’t cite any specific examples, but Montreal police have said two Jewish schools were hit by gunshots, while a series of brawls at Concordia University led to three people being injured and one arrested.

“What’s happening in the Middle East right now is causing a lot of devastating emotions — fear, anger, grief — on all sorts of different communities, but particularly both the Muslim and the Jewish communities across Canada,” he said.

“We all need to be extremely concerned about the rise in tensions, the rise in threats of violence, the rise in actual acts of violence and the rise in hatred.”

In recent years, Muslims have shown up to support Jewish people after attacks at synagogues, and Jewish people have done the same after violence occurred at mosques, Trudeau noted.

“Canadians stand up for each other. We hear each other’s pain and grief and support each other.”

DAILY HUMANITARIAN PAUSE ON AIRSTRIKES

The White House announced on Thursday that Israel agreed to put in place a daily four-hour “humanitarian pause” on its airstrikes in Gaza. Canadian officials say they hope the breaks in fighting will allow more departures of foreign nationals, the delivery of desperately needed humanitarian aid and the negotiation of an eventual end to the month-old war.

U.S. President Joe Biden said the promise of daily pauses came after he called on Israel to withhold bombardment for three or more days in the hopes that Hamas would release hostages, though he said there was “no possibility” of a ceasefire.

The Health Ministry in the Hamas-run territory has said the bombardment has killed more than 11,000 Palestinians. Another 2,650 people have been reported missing.

On Friday, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said “far too many” Palestinians have died and that Israel is not doing enough to avoid civilian casualties.

American officials have said the recent resumption of some water supplies and food shipments has yet to meet a huge demand for essentials.

Separately, United Nations human rights chief Volker Turk called on Friday for an investigation into what he called Israel’s “indiscriminate bombardment and shelling” in densely populated areas in the Gaza Strip.