Manitoba’s Jewish and Palestinian communities are contending with the unknown, as fears for family and friends grow amid ongoing violence between Israeli forces and Hamas militants.
Nearly a week since Hamas’s deadly attack on Israel, more than 2,000 people on both sides have been killed as of Wednesday.
And as news of the fighting pours in, Manitobans are faced with a whirlwind of emotions.
For Guy Halberthal, an Israeli-Canadian living in Winnipeg, these emotions are highlighted by a strong sense of survivor’s guilt.
Halberthal, born and raised in Israel, enlisted with the country’s air cadets in 2006. He went on to volunteer with the country’s ambulance services, joined the air force, and later took up a position with the infantry.
In 2014, he was called up as a reservist to Gaza to secure a settlement.
“We lost our commanding officer and three other soldiers to a terrorist attack. (They) came from tunnels underneath trying to get into the settlement, which we managed to stop at a high cost,” said Halberthal.
“A party (Hamas) whose whole way of life says we want the nation of Israel destroyed, there is not much (we) can do at that point but try to defend ourselves.”
Canada’s federal government listed Hamas as a terrorist group in 2002.
Israeli airstrikes have battered the Palestinian enclave of Gaza, in a retaliatory move for the Oct. 7 attack. The airstrikes have left about 220,000 Palestinians sheltering in UN facilities across Gaza.
Palestinian-Canadian Rafe Abdulla said that one of these strikes killed his friend’s family earlier this week.
“His wife; his family; his father; his siblings — everyone,” said Abdulla. “Eighteen people in one shot. They eliminated the whole family.”
Global News has not been able to independently verify this claim.
Abdulla said he moved to Winnipeg 35 years ago as a refugee from Jaffa, a historic part of the Israeli city of Tel Aviv. While some of his family continues to reside in areas outside of the Gaza Strip, he said he has friends within the enclave. Communication with them, he noted, is not easy.
“Sometimes you hear them, sometimes you cannot, because the communication is destroyed,” said Abdulla. Speaking on the challenges some of his friends are facing, he said that there is a shortage of food in the area. And with Israel’s recent move to cut off energy and fuel, Abdulla said it gets difficult.
He also said he was sad but determined, looking to a future where he can have the right to go in and out of the territory without feeling like a “second (class) citizen.”
“They are fighting for their rights, these people. They are fighting to clarify that we have a land that has been stolen from us,” said Abdulla.
“They are in an open-air prison… at the border, it’s closed. The sea? It’s closed. They sky? It’s closed. And nobody helps them.”
For Halberthal, this recent conflict is the first time there has been a major event in Israel where he’s not with his unit. And even though he’s faced with a sense of remorse, he said he’s ready to get on the next plane back if he’s ever called to join.
“The people who died there the first couple of days had families. The soldiers who were called up had families. I can’t use the fact that I have a family to not go there if I’m called. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself that way,” said Halberthal.
“It’s hard enough to live with myself right now knowing very well that I tried to get called and didn’t manage.”
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk on Tuesday said he was “deeply shocked and appalled by allegations of summary executions of civilians, and, in some instances, horrifying mass killings by members of Palestinian armed groups.”
“It is horrific and deeply distressing to see images of those captured by Palestinian armed groups being ill-treated, as well as reports of killings and the desecration of their bodies,” he said. “Civilians must never be used as bargaining chips.”
He added, “The imposition of sieges that endanger the lives of civilians by depriving them of goods essential for their survival is prohibited under international humanitarian law.”
Halberthal moved to Manitoba’s capital city five years ago. Today, he looks at the conflict from the outside, while Abdulla remains optimistic.
“We can live side by side. We used to live side by side before. We have no difference between the Muslims, Christians, and the Jews,” said Abdulla.
— with files from Global’s Rosanna Hempel
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