Canada secures 800 plane seats to help its citizens get out of Lebanon

September 30, 2024 Canuck

Ottawa must do more to help Canadian citizens leave Lebanon, says the son of a Canadian couple killed last week when an Israeli bomb hit their car in the country’s south.

Speaking from Bahrain in a phone interview, Kamal Tabaja said he’s having trouble sleeping knowing that more family members, including his Canadian brother, are struggling to find a safe route out of the country.

“With the Canadians remaining there, they should start evacuating, sending their own planes or boats,” Tabaja said.

The federal government has been working on plans for a possible military evacuation for months, but for now, Global Affairs Canada is urging people to leave on their own while there are still options to do so.

Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly has said some 45,000 Canadians could be in the country, though only about half that number have registered with the embassy in Beirut.

On Friday, the department began booking blocks of seats on commercial flights headed from Beirut to other countries. Canadian passengers are responsible for finding their way back to Canada from those locations.

Joly said late in the afternoon on Monday that “in order to help Canadians leave the country expeditiously,” the government had secured an additional 800 seats over the next three days for Canadians, permanent residents and their immediate family. The next flight would leave on Tuesday, she said.

The son of two Canadians who were killed in Israeli strikes in Lebanon last week says the Canadian government needs to do more to help its citizens leave Lebanon as the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah escalates. 75-year-old Hussein, left, and 70-year-old Daad Tabaja, seen in an undated handout photo, were trying to flee their village in southern Lebanon on Monday when an Israeli bomb strike hit their car. THE CANADIAN PRESS/HO-Kamal Tabaja,

That’s how they learned of an incinerated vehicle in the vicinity of Israeli bombings.

It fit the description of their parents’ vehicle. The licence plate was a match. His mother’s watch was found in the wreckage.

Tabaja said the bodies of his parents were officially identified at a hospital on Saturday through DNA testing, and they were buried later that day. No one could attend the burial because most of their family members in Lebanon were displaced because of the conflict, he said. That included his brother.

“I said, ‘I don’t want you to go. I don’t want to bury more people,'” he said.

The family immigrated to Canada in the late ’80s to flee the Lebanese civil war, he said. They were initially denied permanent residency and returned to Lebanon for a time, but came back later as refugees and were able to obtain citizenship.

They lived in Ottawa, he said. Eventually, they moved back to Lebanon to help his ailing maternal grandparents, he said, but they would frequently come back to visit.

Tabaja said he’s in “complete denial” about the death of his parents, and he wants them to be remembered as “loving and giving people.” They loved the outdoors, he said, and spending time with their family.

“I have a lot of memories of my father and my mother in parks, rivers, lakes, both in Lebanon and Canada,” he said. “I cherish all these images in my mind. They were happy people.”

For Tabaja, an end to the violence can’t come soon enough. He said he’s received an outpouring of support from around the world following the death of his parents.

“People loved them,” he said. “Everywhere they went, they left a mark.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 30, 2024.

— With files from Lisa Johnson in Inuvik and The Associated Press.

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