Toronto man says his family needs Canadian help to get out of Gaza despite ceasefire
Global News
With one of his sons in a Gaza hospital, Toronto resident Nahed El-Khalidy said the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas came too late to save his daughter's life.
With one of his sons in a Gaza hospital, Toronto resident Nahed El-Khalidy said the recently announced ceasefire between Israel and Hamas is good news, though it came too late to save his daughter’s life.
El-Khalidy said his daughter Caroline, 27, was killed Monday when an Israeli airstrike hit a building near her location in Gaza. The blast, which left his 17-year-old son Mahmoud seriously injured, came one day after the teenager was turned back at the Egyptian border as he tried with other family members to escape to Canada.
He said his son needs medical care that isn’t currently available in Gaza amid shortages of medicine and electricity, and he wants the Canadian government to help.
“He needs surgery urgently, now,” El-Khalidy said in an interview Wednesday. “He needs oxygen and there’s no oxygen, he can’t open his eyes, he can’t move his hands.”
The four-day truce announced Wednesday will free dozens of Israeli hostages held by militants as well as Palestinians imprisoned in Israel. It will also bring a large influx of aid to the besieged territory. The logistics of the ceasefire, expected to begin Thursday morning, were still being worked out late Wednesday.
“It will be good,” El-Khalidy said of the ceasefire, adding that it will make it easier for people to bring water and medicine to hospital patients like his son.
El-Khalidy, an accountant who worked as a university professor in Gaza before moving to Canada three years ago, said all his family members — except for Mahmoud — were on a list of people with Canadian ties allowed to cross into Egypt Sunday.
A Canadian permanent resident, El-Khalidy said he had contacted Global Affairs and was told that his son should go to the border anyway, and that Canadian officials would help him cross with his family.
The Oscar-winning actor has denied all allegations against him and maintains that the incidents raised in the lawsuits either did not happen or were consensual.
European leaders have deflected entreaties from U.S. President Donald Trump to send military assets to secure the Strait of Hormuz.
All six crew members of a KC-135 Air Force refueling aircraft were killed last week in a plane crash over friendly territory in western Iraq, supporting operations against Iran.
U.S. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard testified that the regime remains intact and Tehran and its proxies remain capable of attacking U.S. and allies' interests.
James 'Jimmy' Gracey was reported missing after he didn't return to the short-term rental where he was staying with friends during spring break.
The U.K. Health Security Agency described the event as 'rapidly evolving' and warned of the potential for further cases.
U.S. benchmark crude fell US$1.24 to US$94.53 per barrel. Brent crude, the international standard, rose to US$104.17 per barrel. That's down from more than US$106 on Monday.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy urged Ukraine's allies not to forget about his country, and suggested the U.S. and others should make use of Ukraine's anti-drone technology during the war.
Trump’s visit to China is seen as an opportunity to build on a fragile trade truce, but it has become tangled in his effort to find an endgame to the war in Iran.
White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett said oil tanker traffic in the Strait of Hormuz starting to move is "a sign of how little Iran has left."
The secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, and the head of the Revolutionary Guard’s all-volunteer Basij force, were “eliminated last night," Israel said.
Explosions were heard in Maiduguri, the Borno state capital, where Nigeria’s homegrown jihadi Boko Haram extremists have waged an insurgency for more than a decade.
Iran is reportedly allowing some ships to travel through the Strait of Hormuz, a vital shipping chokepoint to access the resource-rich Persian Gulf.