Mother who escaped Gaza with 4 children details harrowing journey to Montreal

In a faint, broken voice, 31-year-old Bissane Eid thanked God she arrived safely in Canada from the Middle East with her four children, ages six, four, two and seven months. 

Reached by phone at her parents' house in Longueuil, a city on Montreal's South Shore, the Palestinian-Canadian has been bedridden since her arrival Tuesday evening, weakened by fever and more than a month of anguish living in the Gaza Strip, which has been under constant Israeli bombardment for more than a month. 

Eid, who holds a master's degree in civil engineering from Montreal's Concordia University, was living with her husband and children in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis when Hamas militants attacked southern Israel on Oct. 7, killing roughly 1,200 people and taking an estimated 249 people hostage, according to statistics from Israeli officials.

Israel responded by carrying out unrelenting airstrikes on Gaza. Six days into the bombardments, Israel gave Palestinians 24 hours notice to evacuate from the enclave's north before an expected ground offensive. 

Despite living in the south, Eid's house was struck and damaged in a nighttime attack. 

"It was 2 a.m. and we were all sleeping in the living room because it was supposedly the safest room in the house," she said. 

"Luckily we weren't in the bedrooms. There were a few injuries, but nothing serious."

There were bombings every night- Bissane Eid, who escaped the Gaza Strip

Fearing for her life and her children's, Eid took refuge with relatives in the centre of the Gaza Strip, waiting for the Rafah border crossing from Gaza to Egypt to open. Located in the south of Gaza, the border was expected to be opened to allow foreign nationals to evacuate. 

Eid stayed with her relatives in the heart of Gaza for a week, sick with fear.

"I thought the situation in the centre was safer, but it was really horrifying. There were bombings every night," she said. 

Since Oct. 7, Israel has pounded Gaza with air strikes and cut off food and fuel. More than 11,000 people have been confirmed killed, more than 40 per cent of them children, Gaza health authorities deemed reliable by the United Nations said.

Israel says Hamas militants have hidden command centres and tunnels beneath schools, hospitals and mosques, something Hamas denies.

Horror in Gaza 'surreal' 

Still waiting for the border to open but afraid of missing the window to escape, Eid decided to return to the south to stay with other relatives.

"The journey from the centre of the Gaza Strip to the Rafah border is long, and it's hard to find a car capable of taking us there," she said.

"There's no fuel, so some cars run on cooking oil."

After arriving in Rafah with her children, Eid waited a whole day to no avail. The border remained closed.

"I was lucky, because an hour after I left there, the border was bombed," she said. 

Eid made the journey from her city of Khan Younis to Rafah several times, each time hoping to be evacuated to Egypt. Finally, on Sunday, she managed to cross the border. 

Still, she can't stop replaying the horror she'd seen and heard along the way. 

"In my head, it's like everything that's happening in Gaza is surreal."

Husband left behind

About two-thirds of Gaza's 2.3 million people have been made homeless, unable to escape the territory where food, fuel, fresh water and medical supplies are running out.

"There's no more drinking water in Gaza and food is becoming less and less available," said Eid, adding her children were "so happy" to find clean drinking water when they arrived in Egypt.  

"It's a real humanitarian crisis," she said. 

While fleeing the hardship with her children was a relief, Eid fears for her husband who was forced to stay behind in the Gaza Strip, as he's neither a Canadian citizen nor a permanent resident. 

"For him, the priority was for me to get out with the kids as soon as possible. He said, 'You go, and then we'll see what we can do,'" said Eid. 

"But without internet access, we have no news from him. I'm really worried about all my family who is still there." 

'Our family is all the Palestinian people' 

Hadi Eid, the young woman's father, knows firsthand how that feels. He's spent the last month glued to the phone in Longueuil trying to connect his daughter with Global Affairs Canada agents organizing the evacuations.

"The communications blackouts sometimes lasted more than 24 hours, so we had no idea what was going on with them," he said.

"Every time I saw a photo of a child killed in Gaza, I imagined it was one of my grandchildren."

Once Eid arrived in Egypt with her children, her father immediately purchased plane tickets for their return to Montreal. 

Her father, who has lived in Canada for more than 20 years, still has several brothers and sisters in the Gaza Strip.

He says he's happy to have Eid and his grandchildren back home, "but at the same time, we can't stop thinking about our families who stayed behind. Our family is all the Palestinian people." 

In a news release Wednesday, Global Affairs Canada said a total of 367 people with connections to Canada have been able to get out of Gaza through the Rafah border crossing into Egypt.