Doctor fears for his Canadian sister in Khan Younis as Israel bombs southern Gaza
Osaid Alser is trying to get his sister to Canada. But most days, he can’t even reach her
Dr. Osaid Alser is always wondering whether his family is alive.
The doctor based in Lubbock, Texas, who grew up in Gaza City, spends his time trying to break through a virtual communications blackout to get ahold of his brother and sister, who are trapped in southern Gaza, as he watches news reports of Israeli bombs raining down on the region.
When he's not doing that, he's calling the Canadian government, desperately pleading for updates on his sister's application to come to Canada, where she once lived and still holds citizenship.
Global Affairs Canada told CBC in an emailed statement that it cannot comment on specific cases, but that it extends its "sympathies to the families of those affected by the situation in Gaza and Israel."
His sister, Deema Alserr, is in Khan Younis, which has become the new epicentre of the violence in Gaza. Over the past 24 hours, Israeli forces have intensified their bombardment and ground attacks of the southern city and issued new evacuation orders to many of its occupants.
But Gazans say there's nowhere left to run. Most of the Gaza Strip's 2.3 million occupants are already squeezed in and around Khan Younis after being driven out of the northern half of the territory in the early days of the latest Israeli-Hamas war.
Alser spoke to As It Happens host Nil Köksal on Thursday. Here is part of their conversation.
When was the last time you were able to speak with your sister?
Two weeks ago. My brother ... who lives in Egypt right now, somehow was able to talk to her last night, which is amazing.
What did he tell you?
The only thing that she told him is that they're OK. They had to move from their neighbourhood in Khan Younis, which is a city in the south of Gaza Strip, and they had to move to another neighbourhood in Khan Younis.
The bombing has intensified in their area, so they're definitely in danger right now.
It was very brief … call, I think because of the bad quality of the phone services. The call dropped so they were not able to talk more than ... a minute or so.
How are you staying sane or keeping it together as you try to figure out when the best time is to try to call and connect and find out how they're doing?
With the war in Gaza, it's been, like, really, really hard to get any signal. Some people try to go to a nearby hospital to get a Wi-Fi signal, or sometimes go to the top of their building to get the signal.
The other thing is the phone services.... Usually, as the Palestinian community, we're a very close-knit community. We almost talk to each other every couple of days. But I was able to talk to my family over the phone maybe just five times since October 7th.
What bothers me the most is when you hear on the news that this neighbourhood has been bombed, and then you could call your family and nobody picks up. And it's just like, are they alive? Like, did I lose one of my family members?
You also have a brother in Rafah [in southern Gaza]. What have you heard from him?
He's OK — I would say relatively OK compared to others.
He's actually a university professor, and he was actually in Switzerland and decided to go back to Gaza literally a month prior to when the war started. And so he and his family, they're now living in a tent.
He lost his father-in-law. He was killed. He was a dentist who was sniped by a sniper when he was trying to seek medical care in Gaza City. So definitely he's mourning him right now.
And, of course, trying to survive day-to-day life is just extremely hard.
[Two] of your brothers, as well as your mother, did manage to get out and get to Egypt. Why did this brother and sister decide to stay behind?
For my sister, she decided initially ... to stay because of her husband and his family, because it's kind of an extended family living together. So they decided to just stay and kind of see how things go.
They live in the south…. The [Israeli Defence Forces], they initially said: It's a safe area; everybody should move to the South.
But now we're seeing the south being invaded, a lot of people being killed, so it's no longer safe. Therefore they decided a month ago to leave. And she applied — or I applied for her on her behalf — to leave through the Canadian government.
My brother … decided to stay because … after his father-in-law was killed, it was extremely hard to leave his wife and mother-in-law alone without having that kind of emotional support.
My mom and brothers, the single brothers, they decided to leave because my mom has [a] medical condition. She has bad osteoarthritis.
And so we actually pushed her. We told her: Mom, you need medical care. You absolutely need to leave.
She was adamant she didn't want to leave. But we forced her to leave. And, therefore, we needed somebody to go with her.
Why was she so adamant?
I would say the majority of Palestinians, they really wanted to stay. They have everything there. They don't have anything outside Gaza. Many of them don't have relatives to stay with. I mean, even my mom, she's just staying in Egypt. She doesn't want to leave Egypt. She just wants to go back the moment the war ends.
There is a huge, strong kind of sense of belonging and connection to the land. And, therefore, most people don't want to leave.
How has the Canadian government, with regards to your sister, responded to the efforts to get her out? What have you heard from them?
Unfortunately, it's very disappointing.
We started the process a month ago. They couldn't reach out to her, so I was the liaison person.
They questioned everything. They asked [for] so many documents, despite the fact that my sister, she left her house. She does not have any documents.
It took me like a week or so to get all the documents they wanted, and we sent it and they said: Yes, sure. Now we have a complete application.
Since then, I keep calling them, especially when there's bombing in their neighbourhood. And they just say, well, we submitted an application. Now it's on the Israeli and Egyptian side to approve her application.
I just feel like there is not enough pressure on especially the Israeli side, and the Egyptian side as well, to basically escalate that. And, you know, at some point the response was just disappointing ... almost like, "Stop calling us."
I'm really worried that my sister might be killed at any point. You know, my duty is to absolutely call them even every single minute, because I'm really worried about her.
With files from Reuters. Interview produced by Chloe Shantz-Hilkes. Edited for length and clarity
