Cambridge man hopes new chance for visas will help bring family in Gaza to Canada
Rami Aljadba’s family has applied for the new visa program open to 1,000 Palestinians
Rami Aljadba has advocated to the federal government to help bring his family in Gaza to safety in Canada since last November amid the Israel-Hamas war.
Now there's a chance it could happen.
Last week, the federal government announced that they're offering 1,000 temporary resident visas to Palestinians in Gaza with family ties in Canada, but Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Marc Miller said there won't be a hard cap in terms of the number of visas the government grants.
Aljadba, his wife and his brother applied for the program on behalf of their family as soon as they could.
"I took a day off from work [Jan. 9], my wife took a day off from work so we could wait for the minute they announce that the portal is open so we could apply because there was a quota as you know for a thousand, so you need to get in first," Aljadba said.
He has 18 family members they've been attempting to bring over, including his father, siblings and their children, as well as his in-laws.
"Nobody wants to be leaving a place you're born," Aljadba said. "For me, I left, it was a voluntary thing. I went for my education then I liked the life here, I decided to stay. For them, it's different."
He added, "Obviously their safety is the most important thing, so that's why they want to leave, but they have a lot of anger, a lot of sadness that [they're] going to leave everything behind."
The current Middle Eastern conflict was sparked by the Oct. 7 Hamas attack in Israel that saw approximately 1,200 people killed.
Hamas had also taken 240 hostages, but 105 have since been returned during a brief ceasefire last year. Over 23,000 Palestinians have been killed in retaliatory attacks by Israeli forces in Gaza.
The National Council of Canadian Muslims, which had been advocating for such a program, has said it is in contact with the families of more than 1,000 potential applicants.
A similar program for Ukrainians fleeing the country after Russia invaded in 2022 had a much larger cap of 200,000 applicants.
A journey to safety
Aljadba's family is from Gaza City, but they had to leave their homes a few days after the war began last October and moved to Al-Zawayda, where they stayed for more than two months. Aljadba said that they remained there until it got "very intense."
They relocated again, but Aljadba explained his family found themselves living homeless and unsheltered for a day, before they secured a two bedroom apartment in Deir Al Balah. That's where they are now.
"They're one of the lucky ones," he said. "I know a lot of people that don't even have a tent so they are very fortunate that they found a place that could host them until the next displacement or until we can get them over to Canada."
They've completed the first stage of the application, and if approved, they'll be given a code to submit the materials for the second stage.
But even if they get the visas in hand, they still have to get to the Egypt-Gaza border.
"The journey from where they live to the Rafah Crossing might also be a challenge," Aljadba said.
"You could technically have your name on the list and not make it there alive," he said. "I guess the best way to describe it is, we are taking it day-by-day and we're capitalizing on every little win we get right now."
'To choose safety'
Sahar El-Yaqoubi of Kitchener is also trying to get her loved ones in Gaza to Canada under this new program. Her parents, brother, and sister-in-law with her children are still there and have been displaced from their home in Gaza City, too. They're now in the south.
"In Gaza now: No water, no food, no electricity, no internet is available," she said. "Anyone staying there will be waiting to be killed."
Like Aljadba's family, there are mixed feelings about leaving the territory.
"No one wants to leave their home," El-Yaqoubi said. "No one wants to leave Gaza, no one wants to leave Palestine, but these circumstances have left them with no other option than to choose safety."
Also like Aljadba's family, they're waiting to see if their family is going to make it through to the next stage of the application process.
Matthew Krupovich, a spokesperson for Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada said in an emailed statement that they're "working 24/7 to process incoming applications" but that "movement out of Gaza remains extremely challenging and may not be possible as countries and other actors set their own entry and exit requirements."
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With files from Raffy Boudjikanian, Brennan MacDonald, Thomson Reuters