Urgent Action for Gaza Moms: Canada Must Urgently Evacuate Doaa, Nariman and Nariman's children

Please take 2 minutes to email and call (samples below) to reunite two Gazan families that Canada forcibly separated at their evacuation point 2 months ago. The Canadian government is telling mothers: if you want your kids to live, you must stay behind, using the rationale that they have not completed a visa application step that Canada’s own website says they do not have to fulfill until AFTER they leave Gaza. We’ve all seen the horrific images continuing to emerge since then. The children see them too and wonder if they will ever see their moms again. With your help, they will. 

How you can help:

Write a letter:

Please cut and paste the letter below (and edit as you see fit to personalize the letter and subject matter, and add your MP’s email in the CC section)  

For Subject Line:  Urgently Evacuate Doaa Nashwan, Nariman Abu Amra and all eligible to come to Canada from Gaza

To: gary.anand@parl.gc.ca, lenametlege.diab@parl.gc.ca, Anita.Anand@parl.gc.ca

CC: Mark.carney@parl.gc.ca, ziad.aboultaif@parl.gc.ca, David.angell@pco-bcp.gc.ca, Nisara.Jiwani@pco-bcp.gc.ca, ps.ministerofpublicsafety-ministredelasecuritepublique.sp@canada.ca, tasc@web.ca, IRCC.Minister-Ministre.IRCC@cic.gc.ca, Minister@cic.gc.ca, Scott.Harris@cic.gc.ca, Harpreet.Kochhar@cic.gc.ca, pm@pm.gc.ca, Tricia.Geddes@ps-sp.gc.ca, minister@ps-sp.gc.ca, Daniel.Mills@ps-sp.gc.ca, Salma.Zahid@parl.gc.ca, Jenna.Sudds@parl.gc.ca, Iqra.Khalid@parl.gc.ca, nathaniel.erskine-smith@parl.gc.ca

Dear Ministers Diab, Anand, and Anandasangaree,

Canada must stop playing Russian Roulette with the lives of Palestinians eligible to come to Canada and immediately evacuate Doaa Nashwan, Nariman Abu Amra (and her three children, Mohammed, Manar, and Ahmed), as well as other families who have been cruelly separated as Israeli imposed bombs and starvation face them down in Gaza.  

These two families were forcibly separated at the Kerem Shalom evacuation point in early April because of a heartless paperwork technicality that violates Canada’s own Gaza Temporary Residence Visa program. As you know, that program does NOT require that biometrics (fingerprints and photo) be completed as a condition of leaving Gaza to come to Canada. It even says so on the program website. And yet this excuse that Canada is now using to not submit their names for evacuation – lack of biometrics – means that they had the impossible Sophie’s Choice of having to make last minute decisions about who will live and who will face further risk of immediate or slightly longer death under conditions the International Court of Justice has called a plausible case of genocide. Countless other families face the same impossible choice.

Canada is condemning to death people like Doaa, Nariman, and Mohammed, Manar and Ahmed, who are unable to provide what the government has already acknowledged since day one was something they could not provide from within Gaza. When Canada keeps moving the goalposts, what are families seeking to escape a genocide to do?  

I am calling on you to immediately place these names on the evacuation lists and ensure they are reunited with their loved ones in Canada as soon as possible. 

In addition, Canada must end its lethally slow pace for processing Palestinian applications. This means immediate processing of all remaining 3,500 Visa applications using Ukraine program-level screening turnarounds of 14 days, not 14+ months as we are seeing in the Gaza program. 

In the first year of the Canada-Ukraine Authorization for Emergency Travel  program, Canada processed 1,400 applications a day and welcomed 130,000 people. In the Gaza program, they have only done 2 applications per day, and hundreds have been killed waiting for approval as fewer than 1,000 have made it here. During that same time period, Canada approved over 8,000 visas for Israeli citizens. 

Canada must also immediately finalize Gaza program applications for those stranded in Egypt. Up to 1,000 people have been languishing without status in Cairo for more than 16 months. This is not the kind of pace that should apply to an emergency measures program.

Canada must issue specific instructions to end the racist harassment Canadian Border Services Agency officers are inflicting on traumatized genocide survivors when they do get here. Critically, Canada must work with the provinces to end the confusion it has created with its patchwork program so that everyone arriving can work, go to school, and receive health care.

Canada has a history of such life-threatening discriminatory behaviour during a holocaust. A shameful chapter of our history is called None is Too Many, when Jews were denied entry for many of the same xenophobic reasons that Palestinians face today. 

As one of over 10,000 people who’ve signed a petition in support of these families, I call on you to immediately reunite these families and devote the resources needed to immediately process all remaining applications and evacuate everyone with loved ones in Canada. 

Thank you

NAME

CITY/TOWN

 

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

 

CALL INSTRUCTIONS: 

Minister of Immigration Lena Metlege Diab: 613-996-3085

Minister of Foreign Affairs Anita Anand: 613-995-4014

Minister of Public Safety Gary Anandasangaree: 613-992-1351

 

Please call using this text as a guideline and leave a message if you do not speak directly with a person. PLEASE be polite, as any negative interactions will harm the families. If they say this is the wrong office, politely tell them this IS the office where feedback needs to be heard and ask them to pass it on.

Hi, my name is XXX and I’m calling from XXX. Like many people I am incredibly upset about the horrors being inflicted on the Palestinian people and the failure of Canada to help people from Gaza escape. I object to Canada’s forcible separation of families at the evacuation point. Specifically, I am calling on you to immediately approve for exit mothers Doaa Nashwan as well as Nariman Abu Amra and her three children. Too many people have been killed waiting for their Canadian visas to be processed. You need to ensure that this program meets the same 14-day visa application turnaround as the Ukraine program. It’s an emergency program and needs to be operated on an urgent, emergency basis. Thank you.