Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called on Hamas to immediately release the people being held hostage in Gaza, which he saysmay include at least three missing Canadians.
Trudeau spoke in Parliament for the first time Monday since fighters stormed into Israel from the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip on Oct. 7, killing hundreds of people and taking a reported 199 people hostage.
“Five Canadians were murdered by Hamas terrorists. Three Canadians are reported missing and may be hostages,” he told MPs in the House of Commons.
He continued in French, saying, “Canada asks Hamas to free all the hostages immediately.”
Canada has listed Hamas as a terrorist entity.
As family members in Canada and other countries struggle to find their missing relatives, Canadian officials have declined to provide details about any potential hostages, warning that doing so could affect their safety.
Trudeau said around 1,300 passengers have left Israel aboard flights arranged by the Canadian Armed Forces. Earlier in the day, Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly confirmed a group of Canadians have also crossed safely from the West Bank into neighbouring Jordan as the violence continues.
The federal government says 21 Canadians, plus 10 people from Australia and New Zealand, took a bus out of the Palestinian territory, which Israel has occupied since 1967 and where it has established numerous Jewish settlements.
But the situation in Gaza is much more dire. Israel has further blockaded the territory and has cut access to electricity, food, water and humanitarian aide. More than a million people have been displaced from their homes as bombs continue to fall and the UN has warned that hospitals are about to run out of fuel and supplies.
Trudeau acknowledged the worsening humanitarian crisis and called for “unimpeded humanitarian access and a humanitarian corridor so that essential aide like food, fuel and water can be delivered to civilians in Gaza.”
“It is imperative that this happen.”
However, he did not call for a ceasefire, as NDP MP Heather McPherson did earlier during Question Period, and stopped short of calling for Israel to end its bombardment of the 2.3 million Palestinians living in Gaza.
Canada was still working to get up to 300 citizens and their relatives out of Gaza, which is braced for an expected ground invasion by Israeli forces.
A plan to allow foreign nationals to leave the 365-square-kilometre coastal stretch via the border crossing with Egypt fell through on Saturday.
Officials say more than 6,800 Canadians are registered with Global Affairs in Israel, and more than 450 in both the West Bank and Gaza.
David Wallach, a Calgary businessman who moved to Canada from Israel 25 years ago, was in Tel Aviv for a family holiday when the conflict began.
He and his family planned to get on one of the Canadian airlifts, but ended up taking a charter paid for by a donor from Toronto.
He also said evacuations from Israel should have happened sooner.
“When you wait, and the war escalates, it’s tougher to take those people out,” he said.
“If the Canadian government would have had that plan in advance and started evacuating people Sunday and Monday, by now most Canadians would already be out of harm.”
Wallach said it was tough leaving family members behind and he worries about Canadians in the West Bank and Gaza who are still trying to find a way home.
Liberal MP Anthony Housefather said Monday the Jewish community in Canada is devastated and families are living in fear as police in major cities monitor for antisemitic threats.
He said Israel has a right to respond and to defend its borders.
“At this point you have a western democracy that was attacked by a terrorist group that had the worst killing of Jews in any day since the Holocaust,” he said.