(Ottawa) A first Canadian contingent of 75 people was extricated from the Gaza Strip on Tuesday through the Rafah border crossing, and other departures are expected this Wednesday. Ottawa says it is ready to continue the operation, while warning that “significant delays” should be expected at the border.
“We can confirm that today [mardi]75 Canadians, permanent residents and their eligible family members crossed the border from Gaza into Egypt at the Rafah border crossing,” Global Affairs Canada announced late Tuesday evening.
“More departures from Gaza are planned for tomorrow [ce mercredi] », added the Ministry.
At the start of the day, Tuesday, while a first group was preparing to set foot on Egyptian soil, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mélanie Joly, welcomed this “ray of hope” in a video filmed in Japan, where she is for a G7 meeting.
PHOTO MARCO CAMPANOZZI, LA PRESSE ARCHIVES
Melanie Joly
His ministry, however, provided this caveat: the Canadian government “does not determine when and how many people can cross on a daily basis”, and “Canadians should expect significant delays at the Rafah border crossing”.
A path strewn with pitfalls
Tuesday’s repatriation operation was anything but simple, said Louis Dumas, Canadian ambassador to Egypt.
The three buses sent to the border in the early morning were in fact slowed down by a patch of fog, prolonging a journey which already takes several hours, over hazardous terrain.
“We had problems along the road, because there was a lot of fog on the Mediterranean coast,” the diplomat said in an interview.
If the government managed to get 75 people out, this is a fraction – less than a quarter – of the approximately 450 Canadian citizens and permanent residents and their relatives who were caught in the Gaza Strip.
Will we be able to evacuate the entire contingent within the next few days?
Ambassador Louis Dumas, who has been stationed in Cairo for three years and who previously served at the Canadian mission in Tel Aviv, avoids making such promises.
We have to be realistic ; I think we’re going to be in there for quite a long time. But we are 100% committed to releasing them all, and we are ready.
Louis Dumas, Canadian Ambassador to Egypt
It is not impossible that the Rafah border crossing opens and closes unpredictably, as it did last weekend, creating a backlog that now needs to be managed.
PHOTO SAMAR ABU ELOUF, THE NEW YORK TIMES ARCHIVES
Foreign passport holders check the list of names of people authorized to cross the Rafah border post into Egypt.
“We were supposed to take 200 people out on Sunday and 210 people on Monday,” said the head of mission.
“But on Saturday there was a disagreement at the border as Hamas tried to pass through so-called people of interest – we don’t know exactly who – and when Egypt and Israel refused to let them pass, Hamas said: ‘If our people of interest do not pass through, there is no one passing through,’” he explained.
Egyptian hesitations
Egypt was already very resistant to the idea of opening its border with the enclave.
President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi opposes a mass movement of Palestinians from Gaza to Egypt, seeing it as a danger to the future of the Palestinian cause.
PHOTO CHRISTOPHE ENA, REUTERS ARCHIVES
The President of Egypt, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi
The world must never tolerate the use of human suffering to force people to move.
Abdel Fattah al-Sissi, President of Egypt, at the Cairo Peace Summit on October 21, according to a transcript of his speech
The movement of Palestinians to Egyptian lands would be a new step towards a “liquidation of the Palestinian cause and would shatter the dream of an independent Palestinian state,” argued President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.
Foreign nationals will have to quickly leave Egypt, moreover, under the agreement that was concluded.
Consular and security puzzle
” Tomorrow [mercredi] First thing in the morning, we’re going to have interviews with them to put the puzzle back together. We are going to have people with passports, and others without,” said Louis Dumas.
Consular and public security experts will participate in the operation.
“As soon as people are ready and able to travel, we will have a travel agent on site who will assist them in booking flights,” detailed the Ottawa envoy to Cairo.
Blocks of seats have been reserved on board Egyptair aircraft for flights from the Egyptian capital, he noted.
Tickets will be at the expense of the evacuees.