(Ottawa) The toll of Canadian victims of attacks carried out by Hamas in Israel has increased, with three deaths, including one presumed, announced Wednesday Minister of Foreign Affairs Mélanie Joly. Without wanting to confirm that Canadians had been captured, she said that a team of Canadian experts would be deployed to contribute to efforts to free the hostages, while Ottawa is also leading the effort to repatriate Canadians stuck in the region.
Minister Joly also announced that the toll of Canadian victims had increased: three people lost their lives – two confirmed and one presumed – in the violence between Hamas and Israel, while three people are still missing. .
She would not confirm whether Canadians had been taken hostage “so as not to increase their value and not to put their lives in danger”, but she maintained that Canada was in contact with the chief negotiator of Israel, and that a Canadian team would be sent there to support its efforts.
This strategy is the right one, especially since we are in unfamiliar territory, notes Douglas Scott Proudfoot, former Canadian representative to the Palestinian Authority. Because if Hamas used hostage taking as a way to obtain the release of Palestinian detainees, these massive kidnappings of foreigners are unprecedented.
“In the past, Hamas has captured Israeli soldiers, but a hundred or more people, including children and civilians, we have never seen that,” explains the man who was stationed in Ramallah from 2016 to 2019. The situation is therefore “very, very risky”, worries the ex-diplomat.
PHOTO SPENCER COLBY, CANADIAN PRESS ARCHIVES
Melanie Joly
Minister Joly also refused to comment specifically on the total siege that was imposed by the Jewish state on the Gaza Strip, simply asserting that both parties must respect international law, and pleading in favor of the establishment of a humanitarian corridor in the region.
“Canada unequivocally condemns the Hamas terrorist attack against Israel. We support Israel and its right to defend itself in accordance with international law,” she declared at a press conference in parliament.
“We also know that Hamas is not the Palestinian people. It does not represent their aspirations and offers nothing but more chaos, loss, and heartbreak,” added the minister, who was accompanied by the Chief of the National Defense Staff, Wayne Eyre.
Rescue mission
The latter will contribute to the logistics of the repatriation operation, which will get underway by the end of the week. Military aircraft are expected to take off from Tel Aviv airport to land in Athens. From there, the route to Canada will be provided by Air Canada, under an agreement with Ottawa.
Minister Joly argued that it was unusual to carry out a rescue operation when commercial flights are still available. “But we felt the need to intervene when we saw that people were seeing their flights to Canada canceled or delayed indefinitely,” she explained.
There are 4,249 Canadians registered with the registration service in Israel, and 476 for the Palestinian territories.
It is for the latter that the task risks being particularly difficult, fears Douglas Scott Proudfoot. “There was already an almost total blockade on Gaza. It was already very difficult, even in normal times, to get permission from the Israelis to enter or leave,” he explains.
Hence the warning to Canadian nationals to avoid any non-essential travel to the Gaza Strip, he said: “It’s very dangerous, and if something happens, we don’t have the means to deal with them.” help “. Strength in numbers could help, because Canada is not the only country having to manage this crisis, he concludes.