Please sign: https://www.change.org/p/allow-war-traumatized-kids-from-gaza-to-live-with-parents-in-canada Sireen and Sama have spent four years in hiding and survived on the most bombed street in Gaza in May 2021, yet still wait for Ottawa to issue permits to join their mother, Amal, in Hamilton, whom they've not been able to hug for 29 months due to Canada's endless processing delays. (More Details on how you can help are below)
As many Canadian families plan double-vaxxed gatherings to end a painful, pandemic-induced separation, Hamilton Palestinian refugee Amal Battrawi hopes for another kind of family reunion.
Amal has not been able to embrace her husband and two daughters since she was forced to flee the Gaza strip in March 2019. The family were a constant target of Hamas abuse that forced them to live in hiding. When Amal reported this abuse to police, her complaints were not only ignored, but resulted in increasingly intense threats. Amal will never forget a chilling message she received before coming to Canada: “I will not leave you alone, and the report you made at the police station, you will regret, and I will burn your heart.”
While Amal and her young son Sameer were able to get travel visas, her husband and two daughters, Sama and Sireen, were forced to stay behind, continuing to hide in a succession of safe houses. Often, they have to be split up. But Gaza is a very small place, and there are few friends and family left who can risk harbouring anyone with Hamas targets on their backs.
Like many refugees, Amal daily checks for progress on her family’s permanent residency file. Her anxiety is not helped by the May finding that the average processing time for such applications now sits at 39 months. And because her daughters and husband live in a war zone, she also worries constantly when she does not hear from them. She hopes it’s the poor electricity and internet in Gaza that prevents them seeing one another virtually, and not the heartbreaking news she fears every time missiles fall from the skies, like the ones that that have been regularly launched into Gaza since the May, 2021 ceasefire.
The girls experienced the worst of the war on Al-Wehda Street, where residential buildings were struck and 42 people killed. Amal saw videos of her daughters, terrified as missiles exploded in the background.
She was also not the only one watching her kids suffer from afar. Ottawa Palestinian refugee Jihan Qunoo, who also fled Gaza in 2019, took her family reunification plea to the airwaves during the May bombing, sharing harrowing images of her girls screaming from the ear-shattering explosions and concussive effects of a direct hit on the building next door to their apartment, killing twelve neighbours.
That publicity helped Qunoo win early admission temporary resident permits (TRP) to bring her husband and children to safety in Canada. Amal and a dozen other in-Canada Gaza refugees seek the same permits, which are designed to urgently respond to humanitarian crises like the one still gripping Gaza.
Indeed, in May, UN Secretary-General António Guterres declared, "If there is a hell on earth, it is the lives of children in Gaza.” A July 2021 report on the effects of the May 2021 attacks found 91% of Gaza children a now suffer post-traumatic stress disorder.
Amal and the other separated families have direct evidence of such trauma in their own children. Their kids are afraid to sleep, fearing the return of bombs or the resumption of nightmares. They don’t go outside because the drones that constantly patrol overhead represent the possibility of instant death. For Amal’s kids, going outside also means the lethal consequences of being picked up by Hamas. Instead, their lives are akin to a modern day Anne Frank.
Issuing Amal and the other families early admission permits would be in keeping with Canadian responses to other disasters, including the Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 and Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752 tragedies, last summer’s Beirut explosion, and the recent airlift of former Afghan interpreters. In 2018, a 13-year-old BC boy got a TRP so he could play baseball in the little league world series.
Thusfar, four of the dozen families have been granted the permits, two of them within a relatively short 14-day turnaround.
But Amal is left asking why her family’s application, filed six weeks ago on an urgent basis, has yet to be processed, especially when immigration officials know her kids have been in hiding over 4 years and her husband’s life is at direct risk. Indeed, she asks, if Ottawa can intervene for a teenaged baseball player, why has it yet to step up to the plate for a family facing far greater danger? It’s a question she hopes gets answered before it’s too late.
WHAT YOU CAN DO:
1. Sign and share this petition: https://www.change.org/p/allow-war-traumatized-kids-from-gaza-to-live-with-parents-in-canada
2. Call and Write to the Immigration Minister.
Sample email (feel free to personalize—why is this important to you?)
To: IRCC.Minister-Ministre.IRCC@cic.gc.ca, Marco.Mendicino@parl.gc.ca, Minister@cic.gc.ca
Cc: Marc.Garneau@parl.gc.ca, Soraya.MartinezFerrada@parl.gc.ca, tasc@web.ca, Jenny.Kwan@parl.gc.ca, Chandra.Arya@parl.gc.ca, Peter.Schiefke@parl.gc.ca, Kamal.Khera@parl.gc.ca, Yasmin.Ratansi@parl.gc.ca, Salma.Zahid@parl.gc.ca, Catrina.Tapley@cic.gc.ca, mona.fortier@parl.gc.ca, Marwan.Tabbara@parl.gc.ca, Paul.Manly@parl.gc.ca, Iqra.khalid@parl.gc.ca, Joel.Lightbound@parl.gc.ca, Ruby.Sahota@parl.gc.ca, Lenore.Zann@parl.gc.ca, Majid.Jowhari@parl.gc.ca, Elizabeth.May@parl.gc.ca, Pam.Damoff@parl.gc.ca
Dear Marco Mendicino,
I am writing today in support of the 8 Gaza refugee families in Canada who urgently need immediate Early Entrance Temporary Resident Permits. Similar permits have already been granted to four families.
These families have not seen their loved ones for 2 to 3 years, and may not see them for another 39 months. This is unacceptable in the midst of a humanitarian crisis where the lethal threat of military violence continues to hang over their heads.
Applications for these families are already on the desks of the overseas visa posts. They should be processed on an urgent, expedited basis. Better yet, issue blanket permits to these families now and process their TRP applications while they are safely reunited in Canada.
The best interests of affected children and Canada’s commitment to family reunification demand urgent action on these cases. It would be unconscionable to leave them in Gaza for at least another three years (the average processing time for permanent reside applications) after UN Secretary-General António Guterres declared, "If there is a hell on earth, it is the lives of children in Gaza.”
Canada has a history of enacting such measures in response to humanitarian crises. Recently, IRCC announced a temporary residence public policy for in-Canada families of the victims of the Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 and Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752 tragedies. Last September, similar assistance was extended to those with loved ones affected by the horrific Beirut explosion. Following the December, 2004 tsunami in Indonesia, Canada waived fees and granted priority processing to hundreds of affected permanent resident applicants.
In the summer of 2018, Canada issued a Temporary Resident Permit to a B.C. refugee teenager so he could play baseball. In early June, 2021, Canada granted Early Entrance Temporary Resident Permits to the Gaza-based husband and children of Ottawa Palestinian refugee Jihan Qunoo, who fled Gaza in 2019. They received those permits 13 days after applying. Three other Palestinian refugees in Canada will soon be reunited with their families because their permits have also been approved.
I am joining many others in calling on you to do the same for the remaining 8 Gaza families, whose circumstances enduring a humanitarian crisis match the conditions that gave rise to Qunoo’s happy family reunion.
You tweeted last November that "Our government strongly believes in the importance of keeping families together—particularly during difficult times. Now, more than ever, family reunification is an important component of Canada’s immigration system.”
Answering this call to reunite in-Canada Palestinian refugee families with children and spouses facing such difficult times while stuck in Gaza will help give true life to that commitment.
Time is short, tensions are high, and misery is growing. I look forward to positive news that you will issue blanket Early Entrance Temporary Resident Permits to the children and spouses of in-Canada Palestinian refugees. Please act before it is too late. As one father told CBC after the mid-June escalation of violence, "This time, a friend or a neighbour gets killed. Next time, will it be my child?”
NAME
CITY, Province
SAMPLE CALL
Marco Mendicino’s office (leave a message if you can): 613-992-6361, 416-781-5583
If the lines are full (or if you have an extra minute, please call Parliamentary Secretary to the Immigration Minister, Peter Schiefke 613-957-3744 (or, if full, 450-510-2305)
Hi, my name is XXX and I'm calling from XXXXXXXXX to support the Palestinian refugee families in Canada who are trying to bring their kids and spouses here from Gaza while their permanent residency applications are processed. The ceasefire is fragile, the conditions of daily life are desperate. The kids are traumatized, their loved ones here sick with fear. Canada issued a permit to reunite the family of an Ottawa refugee from Gaza in June within 13 days of receiving her application. We would like to see blanket Early Entrance Temporary Resident Permits issued to the other members of this modest-sized group of Palestinian refugees who are in crisis. This would be in keeping with our commitment to family reunification. Please act before it is too late.”
3. You can also contribute to the costs of getting these families back together again through the Rural Refugee Rights Network’s Family Reunification Fund with etransfers to tasc@web.ca or cheques to Homes not Bombs, mailed to 2583 Carling Ave., Unit M052, Ottawa, ON K2B 7H7