Mamdouh Abusbitan is a young man starving to death, his body and soul withering away as he waits for Canadian assistance to exit Gaza and join his parents in Ontario. Although Canada placed Mamdouh on the Gaza evacuation list as of November 19, 2023, Canada failed to assist in his evacuation over the following six months before the Rafah crossing was closed.

Although Canada is able to evacuate people through the Kerem Shalom crossing – 11 were brought to Canada the final weekend of July – they have yet to assist Mamdouh. In order to save his life, Canada must urgently finalize his permanent residency application (waiting over 52 months) or, alternatively, issue a temporary resident permit and evacuate him  to save him from famine and the daily Israeli bombardments and threats of instant death simply for seeking food.  

He writes to the Canadian government and people, “This is my cry from Gaza, from the dark, deadly, and starving corner of the world. Mamdouh is pleading with you all…hear his voice before it is silenced forever.”

This 22-year-old is traumatized not only from the current act of genocide, but from the ongoing Israeli military onslaughts and war crimes that have marked his whole life, where the sickening Israeli military epithet of “mowing the lawn” has persistently been used to describe one massive, lethal attack after another, milestones in Mamdouh’s life that began with the 23-day assault in 2008-2009 (1,400 Palestinians killed in the infamous Cast Lead), the 8-day assault in 2012 (175 Palestinians killed), the 50 day assault in 2014 (2,100 Palestinians killed), the March 2018 slaughter of over 220 Palestinians peacefully protesting the apartheid borders, the 11-day assault in 2021 (260 Palestinians killed), and the August 2022 assaults (30 Palestinians killed).

In-between these attacks on an area 1/7 the size of the city of Ottawa was the daily precarity of surviving in a tiny strip of land undergoing constant economic strangulation, a total Israeli blockade by land, sea and air that produced what the UN described as a “hell on earth for children” long before current horrors overtook these past acts of genocide.

It was after the 2021 Israeli bombardment that Mamdouh’s father – a refugee and public health professional in Canada since 2019 who had submitted an application for permanent residence for himself and his family still in Gaza – sought temporary resident permits to allow his wife and children, including Mamdouh, to come to Canada to await final permanent residency processing, given they had already been apart over two and a half years. Like 14 other families that year who received the assistance of the Rural Refugee Rights Network and some wonderful pro bono lawyers in Canada, Mamdouh’s family was granted those permits subject to being able to leave Gaza to receive fingerprints and photographs (aka biometrics) in Egypt. His mother and his sister were able to leave Gaza to complete their biometric enrollment (fingerprints and photographs) in Egypt. 

Unfortunately, for Mamdouh, an 18-year-old Palestinian male at the time, crossing the Rafah border was virtually impossible. Securing the required coordination to enter Egypt was exceptionally difficult for males within this age bracket. Confronted with these obstacles, Mamdouh made the difficult decision to remain in Gaza, pursue his engineering studies at Al-Azhar University, and patiently await the final processing of his family’s permanent residence application, which, as previously mentioned, had been submitted in 2021.

 Despite this obstacle, in November 2022, Mamdouh received a Quebec Selection Certificate (CSQ) from the Ministère de l'Immigration, de la Francisation et de l'Intégration (MIFI). But still Canada failed to finalize his permanent residency. 

Bidding a tearful goodbye to his mother and younger brothers and sisters, Mamdouh was forced to stay behind until his Canadian permanent residency was granted, which would make it much easier to obtain an exit permit. But 52 months after the family submitted their permanent residency applications, there has been zero action to finalize the files and allow the family in Canada to get on with their lives, while also providing Mamdouh the status he needs to assist him in escaping the kill zone.

On October 29, 2023, the Global Affairs Canada (GAC) Emergency Watch and Response Centre wrote to Mamdouh’s father regarding Mamdouh: “If you are a Canadian citizen or permanent resident or a family member of a Canadian citizen or permanent resident and require assistance to depart the area please contact the Global Affairs Canada Emergency Watch and Response Centre.”  

On November 4, 2023, Mamdouh’s father wrote as advised, seeking emergency evacuation assistance. That evening, GAC replied: “We have your son in our consular system and will continue to advocate for his inclusion on the lists of those eligible to depart Gaza via Egypt.”

On November 13, 2023 again in response to Mamdouh’s father, GAC wrote: “We have received your email and understand the gravity of the situation. Please be assured that your son's file is being processed with the utmost urgency. We are coordinating with the relevant authorities to address the matter.”

On February 2, 2024, GAC again wrote to Mamdouh’s family: “we continue to advocate and work with authorities on all sides to ensure that Canadian citizens, permanent residents and their eligible family members are able to leave Gaza, and we are making every effort to have all names of eligible individuals approved urgently.”

On February 2, 2024, Mamdouh informed Global Affairs Canada that he was physically unable to reach the Rafah crossing, and while Canada thanked him for providing the update, it did nothing to facilitate his exit at another crossing point.

Over 630 days after being placed on the Canadian evacuation list, Mamdouh remains stranded in the kill zone, even though Canada has clearly shown it has the capacity to evacuate people through the Kerem Shalom crossing.

In a gut-wrenching letter to the Rural Refugee Rights Network, Mamdouh wrote on August 1: “I am writing to you from Gaza, from a hell unlike any other place on this earth, from a dark and deadly world without life, safety, or mercy.  I write to you with words drowning in tears, I write to anyone who still has a heart that can hear the cry of a human being dying while still alive. I am writing to you because I can no longer endure this torment.

“I am a young man living alone in a city of death, trapped by bombings, hunger, gangs, and merciless fear. Every day I wake up not knowing if I will survive until the end of the day. Every day I open my eyes only to find myself in a place where dreams are killed before bodies, where nothing is heard but the cries of the hungry, the wailing of children, and the sound of explosions.

“I am starving… starving so much that I feel my bones breaking from the inside. I search for anything to keep myself alive. I gather scraps of wood to light a fire and cook what I call a ‘meal’ but it is not truly a meal, it is only water with salt, a few leaves from the trees, and a piece of moldy bread that I force myself to swallow so I don’t die of hunger. Sometimes I tie a stone to my stomach just to fool my body into thinking there is food inside it… “What kind of life is this?  Every day I am threatened, beaten, and robbed by armed gangs.  I return to my broken shelter bleeding, not only from my body but from my soul. I live in constant fear, I hear gunfire even in my sleep. I wake up from nightmares trembling and crying. I no longer know if I am alive or if I am slowly fading away.

My family… I miss them so much that I see their faces in my hallucinations, I call their names at the top of my voice as if my voice could break through walls and reach them, but no one answers. I open pictures of my brothers every night and talk to them until I fall asleep. Sometimes I hug my phone against my chest just to imagine it is my mother’s embrace.

 My home is destroyed, my future has collapsed, my health is gone, I am nothing but a shadow from hunger and fear, and all I have left is one small dream… to escape this hell and return to my mother’s arms, to see my father, to laugh with my brothers, to wake up one day without the sound of bombs. I am not asking for luxury, I am not asking for comfort, I am only asking for a simple right… to live.

Please imagine that I am your son, your brother, a piece of your heart. Imagine for a moment that you are in my place, starving, terrified, alone, begging for mercy and finding none. I beg you, before I slowly die here, help me, save me, take me out of this hell by any way possible and bring me back to my family. I want nothing more than to live in their arms before this darkness swallows me forever.

 This is my cry from Gaza, from the dark, deadly, and starving corner of the world. Mamdouh is pleading with you all…hear his voice before it is silenced forever."

Canada must take immediate action to ensure Mamdouh has the necessary status (as an approved permanent resident or via a Temporary Residence Permit) to be evacuated from the killing zone of what the International Court of Justice called in January 2024 a plausible case of genocide. For Mamdouh, it’s been almost two years of enduring a hell on earth beyond anyone’s imagination. For his family in Canada, wondering moment to moment whether they will ever see him again, it is living a 24/7 nightmare. Canada must do better. 

In addition to evacuating Mamdouh, Canada must urgently evacuate all seeking to reunite with families in Canada, and so we call for:

         Immediately open a humanitarian corridor to urgently evacuate all program applicants to prevent further death and physical and psychological harm to those who, by all rights, should have been in Canada with their families long ago. Other countries have evacuated the loved ones of their nationals. Why not Canada? (In the first year of the Ukraine program, Canada processed 1,400 applications a day and welcomed 130,000. In the Gaza program, they have only done 2 applications per day, and hundreds have been killed waiting for approval as fewer than 900 have made it here. During that same time period, Canada approved over 8,000 visa for Israeli citizens.)

•       Immediately approve visas for the almost 1,000 Palestinian genocide survivors stranded in Egypt after they managed to escape without Canadian government help, many of whom have been waiting over 18 months without access to basic needs (schooling, income, health care) or legal status.

•       Follow Canada’s own program guidelines, which do not require fingerprints and photographs for exit from Gaza, and stop separating families at the evacuation point

•       Stop treating this program as an unjustified investigation rooted in anti-Palestinian racism and Islamophobia, and prioritize life-saving evacuation