After living a 'horror movie' in Gaza for 160 days, Canadian brothers finally escape

Early on Tuesday morning, brothers Mahmoud and Abdelrahman Kouta, each wearing a slim backpack, waited in line to board an idling white tour bus in Rafah just a few minutes' drive from Gaza's border with Egypt.

Abdelrahman climbed the steps and disappeared into the bus first, with Mahmoud squeezing through the crowd to follow close behind. After 160 days living under threat of bombing, starvation, dehydration and illness, the brothers from London., Ont., were getting out of Gaza.

«What we have been living the past six months is something unexplainable … living more than a horror movie, more than what you'd see in a movie,» said Mahmoud, 21, speaking to a freelance journalist working for the CBC while waiting for the bus to take him and his brother to Cairo.

«I am sad and happy at the same time,» he said. «I am happy that I had the chance to evacuate and that I will evacuate today, but I'm sad that my family and relatives are still in Gaza dying under the threat of bombing and starvation.»

Third brother stuck far from border

The brothers are among hundreds of Canadians who have fled Gaza since war broke out between Israel and Hamas on Oct. 7. The last step of their journey to escape the besieged enclave comes as Israel threatens a ground invasion of Rafah, one of the last relatively safe areas of the strip, and talks of a ceasefire continue behind closed doors.

Mahmoud had been pleading with the Canadian government to evacuate him and his brothers since December. Immigration Minister Marc Miller said officials were working to get 500 Canadians living in Gaza to Cairo, but the Kouta brothers never saw their names on the list of approved evacuees.

But on Monday, the Canadian embassy contacted the brothers to let them know they had