Winnipeggers with ties to Middle East watch in horror as conflict between Israel and Hamas escalates

Winnipeggers with loved ones in Israel and the Palestianian territories are watching in fear as the violence between Hamas and Israel continues to escalate, while one former Winnipegger has found herself sorting supplies for soldiers heading to war.  

As of Tuesday afternoon, the four-day-old war has already claimed at least 1,900 lives since Saturday, according to authorities on both sides, as Israel saw gun battles in the streets of its own towns for the first time in decades and neighbourhoods in Gaza were reduced to rubble.

Amidst the conflict, former Winnipegger Jenni Menashge, who lives north of Jerusalem, is helping gather supplies for soldiers heading to the front lines while reassuring family back home in Canada they are safe — for now. 

"I keep saying physically we're OK, as in, we're still alive. And nobody's missing a leg, nobody's been shot. But emotionally, this is shock," she said. 

"We're all kind of just functioning in shock, and everybody's doing what they can."

Menashge was at synagogue Saturday when the attacks began. Outside, she could see missiles stop midair as they ran into Israel's Iron Dome defence system. 

"And it was one and another one and another one and we were just wondering, OK, what's going on?" 

With the country now at war, people who previously served in the army are being called up to fight, leaving their families and jobs behind, she said. That has forced community members to step up to keep services going.

Menashge said her husband and three of her sons went to stock shelves at their local supermarket. 

"It's very much, very much a situation where every man, woman and child is doing what they can."

Like many families in Israel, Menashge's son is also being called up to fight while her daughter also serves in the army. The military called up 300,000 reservists in a short period of time.

"Our army is our family, so every single soldier, my son, my daughter and everybody else, they're my kids. And that's really how people feel here."

'Nowhere for them to go' 

Rana Abdullah, who founded the Canadian Palestinian Association of Manitoba, was celebrating her daughter's wedding in London when the conflict broke out over the weekend. 

The news turned her tears of happiness to tears of heartbreak, she said. 

"It's very overwhelming, it's absolutely stunning," she said. 

"You're stick to the news and you cannot really leave and you're just looking for a glimpse of hope that this is not going to get worse."

Abdullah was born in Kuwait after her family fled the West Bank during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, but she still has close ties to the region and many loved ones there. 

Over the weekend, one family she is close with lost 18 people in one airstrike in Gaza, she said. 

"Those people have nothing to do with politics, completely innocent people, and they are going to suffer the collective punishment. How can that be justified?"

Those who are left feel like they are trapped in a horrific situation with no aid and nowhere to go, she said. 

She said she worries people are losing hope after already living through decades of oppression and violence. 

"When you call them, they tell you don't worry about us, we're dead anyways."

The Palestinian association's current president, Ramsey Zeid, says his family in the West Bank are worried the conflict could spill over to their region. 

"No one knows what's going to happen … so they're getting ready for a really hard few days." 

He says they're worried that their access to food and medicine could become limited, as well as their ability to leave if they need to. 

"A lot of them couldn't leave if they wanted to," he said, adding that travel within Israel is already difficult at the best of times, often requiring certain permits and passing through checkpoints. 

He said they're also worried that borders to neighbouring countries like Egypt could shut down, leaving them trapped. 

"There literally is nowhere for them to go."

Nephew nearly killed at festival 

For the last few days, Avrom Charach has been checking in on family and friends living in Israel and "getting news no one should get."

Thankfully, his immediate family are alive and safe. But one of his nephews narrowly escaped the attack on the Supernova music festival Saturday morning. 

Charach said his nephew was driving to the festival where he was set to perform when he started hearing some of the missiles. 

"And so him and his fiancée … turned back and went to a kibbutz far enough away from there, thank God that nothing happened to them, and stayed with his fiancée's family."

Charach said he's still trying to process the scale of the loss. 

"Usually when something happens in Israel, I don't even think twice about it because my family are there and things get blown out of proportion — this is not being blown," he said. 

"You can't even talk about proportion."