'We fear the night': Palestinian Canadian doesn't know how she will escape Gaza
Evacuations from Israel are under way, but Canadian officials don't yet have access to Gaza
Asia Mathkour broke down in tears on Thursday morning when she heard Canada doesn't know how it will get Canadians out of Gaza.
"That terrifies me because I don't know what's next. We fear the night here," Mathkour told Matt Galloway on The Current. "We hear so many bombs going off, it's a little far from where we're staying now but it's scary. It's very scary."
Mathkour is a Palestinian Canadian living in Gaza with her two young children. She's had to relocate five times since Saturday, when the latest violence in the Israel-Hamas conflict began.
"Sunday we went through hell and then the next day it's even more worse. And then the next day it's even more worse," said Mathkour.
"People are honestly, we're losing our minds of the massive destruction and the amount of people who are dying."
Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly said on Wednesday that Ottawa is working on a way to get Canadians who can't make it to Tel Aviv out of Gaza and the West Bank, possibly through Jordan.
But according to parliamentary secretary Rob Oliphant, it's not clear how that will happen.
"We will continue with our humanitarian assistance when we can, when we're able. Right now, we're trying to find humanitarian corridors to get in there," said Oliphant.
"I can't say it's going to be easy to get anyone in or out of Gaza for the next several days. And our fear is it's going to even get worse."
Families have identified three Canadians killed in Israel. Senior officials told reporters Thursday that four Canadians are believed to be missing.
The latest violence in a conflict that has lasted more than 70 years started when the militant group Hamas launched surprise attacks on several Israeli sites. Israel responded with airstrikes on the Gaza Strip, declaring war and announcing it would cut off access to food, water, and electricity to the area.
Israel says more than 1,300 people have been killed in Israel itself, while Gaza's health authority says at least 1,500 people have died there since Saturday.
Nowhere to go
Mathkour says she has no idea how she's going to get out of danger.
"Nobody has talked to me by phone to tell me anything of what the situation is like, what's going on? What if something happens? What you should do? Nothing," she said.
Mathkour said she received an email from the Canadian government to register her family for evacuation. Now she's waiting to hear back — but her internet is running off battery power right now, and she doesn't know how long that will last.
"Basically, we are waiting for a call to tell us to evacuate, and then we don't have any place, anywhere else to go," she said.
Canadian senior officials said around 100 people in Gaza have identified themselves to Global Affairs Canada looking for help escaping the conflict zone.
Gar Pardy, a retired Canadian ambassador who served as Canada's director-general of consular affairs, says it will take cooperation from the Egyptian and Israeli governments to get people safely out of Gaza, which borders Egypt.
But the Egyptian government has rejected an American proposal to allow Palestinians fleeing Israel's bombardment to leave Gaza, according to a senior Egyptian official early Thursday, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media.
"There is no early solution as far as Gaza is concerned. We haven't even seen the threat of a ... full-scale Israeli invasion into that area. That is still pending," said Pardy.
"There's nowhere for them to go. That's the sad part about Gaza right now."
Evacuating Canadians out of Israel
The first flight of Canadians citizens, permanent residents and their families from Israel took off from Tel Aviv with about 116 Canadians on board on Thursday, according to Defence Minister Bill Blair.
Evacuation planes will take passengers to Athens, and then commercial flights will bring them to Canada. Another flight is scheduled to bring more evacuees from Israel on Thursday night.
Pardy says that is already an exceptional feat at this point in the conflict, but since the danger is much greater along the Gaza Strip, it will be much more challenging to evacuate people from that area.
Over 4,200 Canadians in Israel have registered with Global Affairs Canada so far.
David Wallach, an Israeli Canadian from Calgary, has been in Tel Aviv with his family since last Thursday, and has signed up to evacuate the country.
On Thursday afternoon, Wallach and his family managed to get a chartered flight out of northern Israel, privately organized by a Toronto businessman, and are now in Cyprus, he told CBC's Power and Politics.
"One of the rockets on Saturday hit two blocks from our hotel," Wallach told Matt Galloway on Wednesday.
Wallach said he received an email from the Canadian government that they may be evacuated from the country in the coming days.
"We just got an email saying, stay tuned for the next 24 hours, you'll get notices," said Wallach. He's with his wife, daughter and daughter's boyfriend.
"I'm not going stay here by myself. When they leave, we'll all leave together."
With files from CBC News. Interviews produced by Brianna Gosse, Magan Carty, Kate Cornick and Paul MacInnis
