The federal government says there are now four missing Canadians in Israel, but is at this time not confirming their identities. However, CTV News has spoken to family and friends of four Canadian women who are missing from communities attacked by Hamas militants over the weekend.
In two cases, video has emerged of their last moments before they disappeared.
Canadian Judih Weinstein Haggai, a retired English teacher, was on a dawn walk with her Israeli husband Gad last Saturday when the couple received a red alert on their phones. The alert came from the Israeli government warning residents to barricade themselves in their safe rooms.
At that moment, Haggai, 70, was able to connect with her daughter over text using WhatsApp.
“My mom said she and dad were face down in the fields and that there were hundreds of rockets shooting over their heads,†said Iris Haggai Liniado. Liniaido said her mother told her that they were two kilometres from their home on the Nir-Oz kibbutz, near the Gaza border. The couple had lived on that kibbutz for nearly three decades.
Liniado says her mother’s family lives in the Toronto area and that she has Canadian, American and Israeli citizenship.
The last text Liniado received from her mother was last Saturday at 6:50 a.m.
Since that moment, Liniado, who lives in Singapore, has been in a desperate search for more information. She and her siblings have called Israeli officials and have tried to track down their parents’ neighbours.
“I don’t know if they are hiding, kidnapped or dead.â€
LAST KNOWN MOMENTS
A day later, Liniado was sent a video that her mother took while hiding in the fields. The footage was sent to her mother’s friend Adele Raemer. It shows grass in the foreground while rockets explode in the sky above. In the clip, Liniado can hear her parents' panicked cries.
As the days progressed, Liniado received more grim news. On Tuesday, she learned from a paramedic that her father had called for help after being shot.
“The ambulance wasn’t able to get to him because it was hit by a rocket,†said Liniado.
Survivors who escaped Nir Oz, also told her that most of the community was burned to the ground during the attack.
“Nobody has found their bodies,†said Liniado, her voice dissolving into sobs during the phone interview. “I’m being told that I need to be patient because it’s a war zone.†Liniado says her mother’s family lives in the Toronto area and that Haggai has Canadian, American and Israeli citizenship.
Adele Raemer believes her friend Haggai is being hidden by Hamas in the group’s warren of tunnels underneath Gaza.
“Hamas has captured these people for a reason so they want to keep them alive. They're much more precious to them alive than they are dead,†said Raemer in a Zoom interview from Nirim kibbutz where she lives.
PLEA FOR CANADA TO INTERVENE
Five days after Canadian Shir Georgy disappeared from a music festival, her family discovered a video on social media of the 22-year old woman huddled among a group of young people hiding from Hamas, which the Canadian government has designated a terrorist organization.
In the video, Georgy is wearing a white shirt with a lavender scarf around her neck in what looks like a trailer with a window. A woman sitting next to Georgy is bleeding from a tourniquet wrapped around her leg, while a female security guard, with a weapon at her hip, is seen scanning for threats from a window.
Since Saturday, Georgy’s aunt Michal Bouganim has been scouring hospitals in the region looking for her niece. Bouganim found another woman who was hiding with Georgy at the music festival but has been unable to find more information about what happened after the group fled the trailer.
“The security people were there when the terrorists started approaching the shelter. She told them, ‘You have to run away, run for your life — go hide in the bushes.’†Bourganim says the family has already provided the Israeli government with DNA samples, but are now pleading with the Canadian government to help.
“No one has contacted us. No one has told us if she’s kidnapped, if she’s dead or if she’s alive,†Bourganim said. “We want Canada to intervene and get us information.â€
Tifferet Lapidot was at the same concert as Georgy. Her Canadian family says she was able to speak to her mother as she was hiding in the bushes.
“She said, “There’s shootings all around me. I’m trying to save myself,’ then the conversation was cut off,†said her cousin Oren Zlotnik from Montreal. Zlotnik told CTV News that the family was able to trace Lapidot’s phone to Gaza the next day.
A Winnipeg-born woman is also among the missing.
Vivian Silver, 74, is a peace activist living on the edge of the Gaza strip. Her cousin Les Silver believes Vivian has been kidnapped by militant Hamas forces.
So far, the government has confirmed the deaths of three Canadians, but is unwilling to say if the four missing Canadians have been captured by Hamas. The Israeli military said it has confirmed the identities of at least 97 people it believes has been kidnapped. Some, Israel said, are foreign nationals.
On Wednesday, Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly said that she would “not confirm whether Canada has any hostages because I don’t want to increase the value and put their lives in danger.â€
However, Joly said that Canada would send a team of experts to assist Israeli negotiators during the ongoing conflict, which has so far claimed at least 2,800 lives on both sides in the span of a week.
