By Canadian Press

Canadian man in Gaza describes chaotic conditions while hoping for border to open

Oct 17, 2023 | 10:18 AM

A Canadian man in southern Gaza says essential supplies are running short as conditions become more desperate in the area where he has been taking shelter while waiting for a border crossing with Egypt to open. 

Mahmoud Nasser says he left Gaza City with his wife amid Israel’s retaliatory bombing of the Palestinian territory last week and is now in the southern city of Khan Yunis, where he and 59 other people, including children, have crammed into a home belonging to his wife’s relatives. 

Nasser says food and water are being rationed, electricity is scarce and every home in the area is crowded with people who have fled northern Gaza ever since Israel ordered a mass evacuation ahead of an expected ground invasion. 

He says he has been in touch with Canadian embassy staff and is awaiting a call with details on how to evacuate, possibly through the nearby Rafah crossing with Egypt, the only passage out of Gaza that does not lead into Israel.

Nasser says he was born in Gaza, immigrated to Canada in 2008, and later moved to Gaza City from Mississauga, Ont., with his younger brother and wife in 2021 to be closer to his aging father and operate a family business.

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Canada has been working to get up to 300 citizens and their relatives out of Gaza after a plan to allow foreign nationals to leave the 365-square-kilometre coastal stretch via the border crossing with Egypt fell through on Saturday.

Hamas staged a brutal attack on Israel on Oct. 7 and has launched rockets at Israel every day since. Israel in response has sealed off Gaza from supplies and bombarded the territory. 

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 17, 2023.

The Canadian Press