Omar Mansour knows this very well: every call with his family, who is in the Gaza Strip, could be his last.
So, during these few minutes when he can talk to his parents, his brother and his sisters, the Vancouverite makes it a point to tell them that he loves them.
“I ask them how they are, but it always feels more like goodbye. And I tell them that I love them,” he said in an interview with The Canadian Press.
“I thank them for what they did for me, because this may be the last call, the last time I hear their voice. »
Five of his cousins were killed by Israeli snipers last week while searching for food and water.
Israel pounded several areas of the Gaza Strip with airstrikes and artillery on Saturday. The day before, the United States vetoed a United Nations resolution that demanded an immediate humanitarian ceasefire.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres invoked for the first time Article 99 of the UN Charter, which allows a UN chief to highlight threats he sees to peace and security. international security. He warned of a “humanitarian catastrophe” in the Gaza Strip.
But Deputy US Ambassador Robert Wood argued that stopping military action by the Israeli army would allow Hamas to continue to rule Gaza and “sow the seeds of the next war”.
The current war was sparked by Hamas’ surprise attack on October 7 in southern Israel. In it, militants killed around 1,200 people in Israel, most of them civilians, and captured around 240 hostages.
Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry said the death toll in the territory had exceeded 17,400 in the past two months, in addition to 46,000 injured. The ministry does not differentiate between civilian and combatant deaths, but estimated that 70% of victims were women and children.
Little help available
Gaza’s borders with Israel and Egypt are closed, leaving 2.3 million Palestinians with no choice but to seek refuge in the 40 kilometer long and some 11 kilometer wide territory.
Mr. Mansour, who has lived in Canada since 2014, said his family took refuge in a United Nations-run school near Gaza City. The small building is completely full.
His relatives, however, are well aware that the school could be bombed at any time, he explained.
“All families are in day-to-day survival mode,” according to him.
During a week-long ceasefire, his family walked to his home in the northern part of the Gaza Strip.
His 23-year-old brother, Firas Omar, described to Mr. Mansour the scenes he saw during his journey, recounting piles of stones that were once homes, hospitals, schools and businesses.
The Mansour family house is now in ruins, he lamented. Family members searched the ruins with their bare hands and found some documents they had kept in a safe, as well as a few cans of food that had survived the bombing.
“A can of tuna, a few cans of beans and some corn,” he listed. My mother and father are starving. »
His family had the opportunity to shower for the first time since October 7 during the ceasefire. But there is no water to wash their clothes and they don’t know when they will be able to shower next, he added.
“There is no water to drink either. »
Short on resources
Since the end of the ceasefire, the 1er December, the Vancouverite’s family ate a few spoonfuls of canned food, while trying to make it last as long as possible.
“They have very little left. Firas is afraid to go out too much to look for food, because there are snipers everywhere,” Mr. Mansour stressed.
His mother, Sanaa Omar, who is in her 60s and needs medication, has not seen a doctor since the war began, he said.
“She is tired, exhausted even. Exhausted by all this tension, he let it go. She just wants to get out of this whole situation, find some peace. »
Asked where his family found the resilience to continue, Mr. Mansour replied: “Do they have another choice? No one has any other choice. »
With information from the Associated Press