‘I don’t want to bury more people’: Son of Canadians slain in Lebanon implores Ottawa

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.

“If you are a Canadian citizen in Lebanon, you must leave now,” she said in a social media post. “If you are offered a seat, take it now.”

Speaking before Joly’s update, Tabaja said he believed it would be about two weeks before his brother, who lives in Beirut, would be able to catch a flight.

“You just need to try and hold strong,” Tabaja said he tells himself when he is thinking about his brother. “You have to keep fighting. You have to survive until this is over.”

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was in Inuvik, N.W.T., Monday to mark the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. Speaking to reporters, Trudeau said he was asked to respond to reports that Israel is preparing for limited ground operations in Lebanon.

He reiterated that he has spoken with the president of Lebanon and that Canada is calling for a ceasefire in that country and the region.

“We know how excruciatingly difficult this is for so many people to see the upheavals in the region, and Canada continues to work with partners in the region and around the world to push for a ceasefire. We need to see an end to the violence against civilians,” he said.

The Lebanese health ministry estimates that Israeli strikes have killed more than a thousand people over the past couple of weeks in a major escalation of hostilities between Israel and the Hezbollah militant group, which have been exchanging fire since the beginning of the Israel-Hamas war last October.

With both Israel and Hezbollah vowing to continue their fight, other western countries have started to ramp up exit plans for their citizens amid fears of an even broader regional conflict.

Some European countries began pulling diplomats and citizens out of Lebanon on Monday, with Germany using a military plane.

Tabaja said Ottawa should be doing much more — not just to evacuate citizens, but to condemn the ongoing violence and help prevent more civilians from getting hurt.

Global Affairs Canada did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Joly has said an immediate ceasefire is needed and “there must be no war” in Lebanon.

She said on social media last week that she spoke to Tabaja and his brother after the deaths of their parents, 75-year-old father Hussein Tabaja and 70-year-old mother Daad Tabaja.

“I condemn the killing of these two innocent people who were fleeing violence in an (Israel Defense Forces) strike,” Joly wrote. “We refuse to let civilians bear the cost of this conflict.”

Kamal Tabaja said he called his parents last Monday and encouraged them to flee their southern Lebanon village in the Nabatieh District.

“I said, ‘This is not normal, I think it’s time to leave,'” Tabaja recalled. “Everybody was stuck in traffic for about six to seven hours … it was like a bottleneck. Everybody was stuck there.”

He said he and his brother began to worry when, after last speaking with them sometime in the evening, midnight came with no update from their parents. They started contacting local hospitals and putting out calls for help on social media, he said.

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.

Rianna Lim, The Canadian Press