Winnipeggers in Israel, West Bank anxiously await plane ride home as Canada sends military flights

A Winnipeg woman says close to a week into a deadly war between the Hamas militant group and the Israeli military, she's desperate to bring her daughter and grandchildren home from the West Bank.

Jan Currier's daughter and Palestinian son-in-law moved there last August, along with their four young children.

They planned to spend a year there, hoping to enrol the kids in school and give them a chance to absorb different cultures and visit their father's family before coming back to Canada.

But right now, "I feel like a robot…. I'm just in 'go' mode," Currier said on Friday.

"You just keep going because you have to."

Her daughter is living just outside Ramallah with her husband's family and the couple's four children — who range in age from 21 months to nine years old.

The husband is in Canada, after flying out for a business trip before the war started — which Currier said makes the situation all the more stressful for her daughter.

"She is my hero right now. She's strong and made of steel, but … the anxiety is very high," she said.

'Feeling very helpless'

Thousands have died in both Israel and Gaza since Hamas fighters stormed into Israel's south in a surprise attack last weekend.  More than 1,300 people in Israel have been killed, and militants also took some 150 people hostage.

Since then, Israel has bombarded Gaza non-stop, forcing more than 400,000 people to flee their homes. Gaza authorities say more than 1,800 people have been killed in the retaliatory attacks.

Currier said her daughter knows it's only a matter of time before she will be able to leave, but it's difficult for her to explain to her children why they'll be leaving their loved ones behind.

On Wednesday, Canada's Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly said flights to evacuate Canadians from Israel to Athens will start this week. But those in Gaza and the West Bank who can't make it to the airport in Tel Aviv, like Currier's family, are left in limbo.

Currier said what would normally be a roughly hour-long drive from where her daughter is staying to Tel Aviv now would now take about three hours, due to traffic and multiple security checks.

It's also difficult to find Palestinians willing to drive people to the airport, since they fear for their own safety on the drive home, Currier said.

She said her son-in-law has been calling everyone he can to try to find someone to drive his family.

"I'm sure he's feeling very helpless right now," Currier said.

The federal government has said it is working on a plan to get Canadians out of Gaza and the West Bank, possibly through Jordan, but that won't be easy, said Currier.

"What they need to understand is it's much more complex on the ground than I think they even understand," she said.

'We are exhausted'

Norm Fullerton, a retired Winnipeg English teacher, is also trying to return home.

He and his family were enjoying the tail end of a trip to Israel when the Hamas rockets began flying.

On Thursday, he said he was trying to catch one of Canada's military flights, after his Air Canada flight was cancelled on Wednesday.

"We've been in Tel Aviv now for four days and the streets … have been really very empty. The beaches are empty. People are kind of settled inside," he said in an interview with CBC's Up to Speed. 

Fullerton said he and his family were sent to bunkers in their hotel five times after air raid sirens began blaring. 

"We are exhausted," he said. "We're not in immediate danger here, but it is a little unsettling."

Fullerton said the Canadian embassy has been in contact with him and his family, but communication has been minimal.

"We were in contact with them early — like three, four days ago, and they simply said bunker in place and we'll be in touch with you," Fullerton said.

"Then today [Thursday] we got news that they were actually flying out, but we had heard nothing about where to go or what time they were leaving or anything of that nature. So that was a little frustrating — really discouraging."

He and his family went to the airport anyway to see if they could get on the military flight, but they also had another flight booked Friday morning.

While she waits, Currier hopes her family remains safe.

"Politics don't matter. It's just bring them home to safety," she said.

"And everybody deserves that, and I don't care where or who they are within the Middle East. They all deserve safety."