Palestinian Canadians have renewed their requires Canada to take concrete motion to get their family members out of the Gaza Strip amid Israel’s unrelenting bombardment, slamming a short lived Gaza visa scheme launched earlier this yr as a failure.
Omar Omar, a consultant of the advocacy group Gazan Households, mentioned on Tuesday that he has been attempting to get his kin out of Gaza for months.
“It’s been over a yr now, and I’m nonetheless asking that my household – stranded in Gaza, underneath the continual threat of losing their lives at any second – be handled with the identical urgency, the identical humanity, that Canada prolonged to others,” he mentioned throughout a information convention in Ottawa.
“This lengthy combat, this exhausting advocacy, has drained our sources and all the things we now have. Now we have misplaced a lot again in Gaza, and right here in Canada, this battle is tearing aside the lives we now have tried to construct.”
The Canadian authorities launched the special Gaza visa programme earlier this yr to permit Canadian residents and everlasting residents to use to carry prolonged relations from Gaza to the nation.
However from the beginning, the households and immigration legal professionals mentioned the method was complicated and included invasive questions that went past what is often required, together with detailed work histories and any scars or accidents that required medical consideration.
In addition they accused the federal government of imposing stricter requirements on Palestinians than on different individuals who have sought short-term visas lately, comparable to Ukrainians.
Canada authorised greater than 960,000 visas for Ukrainians fleeing Russia’s invasion of their nation — an 81 p.c approval charge — and almost 300,000 folks have arrived over a two-year span.
In distinction, the Gaza visa programme was capped at 5,000 visas.
Canada’s immigration division instructed Al Jazeera final month that, as of October 5, solely 733 purposes from Palestinians “who exited Gaza on their very own” — with out assist from the federal government — had been authorised.
By that very same date, solely 334 Palestinians had arrived within the nation, the division mentioned, with out specifying why the others had not but landed in Canada.
“After I noticed Canada welcoming hundreds of Ukrainian refugees fleeing struggle, I felt hopeful. I believed that the identical compassion would lengthen to my household,” Omar mentioned throughout Tuesday’s information convention.
“Nevertheless it hasn’t. The betrayal — the chilly refusal — has left me questioning if there’s any coronary heart left on this authorities, if there’s any compassion left for folks like us.”
Canada has mentioned it can’t resolve who will get to depart the Gaza Strip.
Israel and Egypt management the enclave’s southern Rafah border crossing, and it has been closed for months amid the Israeli navy’s offensive, which has killed at the very least 43,972 Palestinians throughout Gaza since October 2023.
“The first problem continues to be the flexibility for folks to exit, as motion out of Gaza stays extraordinarily troublesome or not possible resulting from numerous elements that stay outdoors of Canada’s management,” a spokesman for Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada instructed Al Jazeera in an e-mail in October.
“Canada will proceed working intently with native authorities — at each stage — to facilitate the exit of prolonged relations and to advocate for his or her security.”
However rights advocates have mentioned the Canadian government ought to apply extra stress on Israel to permit Palestinians authorised to return to Canada underneath the visa programme to depart the bombarded coastal territory.
“If this authorities was critical about saving Palestinians, Israel would face critical penalties for stopping their exit from Gaza,” Alex Paterson of the advocacy group Canadians for Justice and Peace within the Center East mentioned throughout Tuesday’s information convention.
In the end, the success of the Ukrainian visa programme “reveals what is feasible”, mentioned David Matsinhe, director of analysis, coverage and advocacy at Amnesty Worldwide Canada.
“This demonstrates very clearly the federal government’s capability to behave with urgency and resolve throughout humanitarian crises,” he instructed reporters in Ottawa.
Matsinhe issued an inventory of calls for for Canada to bolster the Gaza visa scheme, together with eradicating the cap on the variety of candidates and growing diplomatic stress on Israel and Egypt to facilitate the exit of Palestinians.
“This delay, at the same time as relentless bombardment continues, is a tragedy and prompts a chilling query,” he mentioned. “Was this programme intentionally designed to fail?”
