As the crisis between Hamas and Israel continues to escalate, another crisis unfolds. At least 39 Canadians remain stranded in Gaza desperate to leave. To make matters worse, Canada could have prevented the situation from occurring in the first place.

Last week, several governments appealed to Israel to help their citizens leave Gaza before a highly anticipated ground assault was set to take place. This prompted the Israeli government to allow and facilitate the transfer of approximately 300 nationals, including Americans, Russians, Ukrainians and Moldovans through the Erez Crossing into Israel.

Canadians should have been included in this group.

It remains a mystery why Canadian officials did not also plead for Israeli assistance to help get Canadians out of Gaza. Instead, Canada only asked Israel for help in getting trapped citizens while preparations for entering into the Gaza Strip were made by the IDF.

This isn’t the first time Canada has responded slowly to citizens trapped in conflict. During the 2006 Lebanon war, Canada also lagged in its ability to evacuate about 13,000 Canadians from Beirut while the evacuation of US nationals and those of several European countries were facilitated smoothly. Canadians were finally evacuated days after them.

On Monday, the 39 Canadians and over 100 foreigners were set to leave Gaza through the Erez Crossing into Israel, but security risks hampered the effort. A second attempt will be made today.

It’s both shocking and disturbing that Canada was unable to learn from mistakes it made less than 2 years ago. Rodney Moore, a spokesman for the Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs stated, “We are deeply concerned about the security of Canadians in Gaza and are working with Israeli authorities to confirm the soonest available window of opportunity to assist Canadians in leaving Gaza,” Unfortunately, the soonest available window of opportunity already passed.

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Tags: canadians, gaza, hamas, israel, trapped

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 6th, 2009 at 1:47 pm and is filed under Foreign Affairs. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.