CHESTER SAM­BRA­NO

Lead Ed­i­tor - News­gath­er­ing

chester.sam­bra­no@guardian.co.tt

Five T&T na­tion­als have opt­ed to stay in Is­rael dur­ing that coun­try’s war with Hamas.

The most re­cent war be­tween the two coun­tries reignit­ed on Oc­to­ber 7, 2023.

Since then there have been count­less at­tacks from both sides with thou­sands of deaths, in­clud­ing in­no­cent civil­ians.

Since the fight­ing broke out ef­forts have been un­der­way to evac­u­ate na­tion­als out of the war zone.

In the Par­lia­ment on Tues­day In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor An­tho­ny Vieira, SC, moved a Mat­ter on the Ad­journ­ment, “The need for the Gov­ern­ment to as­sist Trinidad and To­ba­go na­tion­als at risk due to es­ca­lat­ing con­flict in the Gaza Strip.”

In re­sponse, Min­is­ter of For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Dr Amery Browne said since the war start­ed, his min­istry has mount­ed ef­forts to as­sist na­tion­als there.

He said it was de­ter­mined that there were sev­en lo­cals in Is­rael.

The first to make con­tact, Browne said, was the moth­er of a 16-year-old stu­dent who was study­ing in Tel Aviv. She was evac­u­at­ed on Oc­to­ber 9, he said.

The sec­ond, a 48-year-old man who vis­it­ed Is­rael for a re­li­gious con­fer­ence but could not leave be­cause flights were can­celled.

Dr Browne said af­ter in­ter­ven­tions, the man even­tu­al­ly left on Oc­to­ber 16 and re­turned home on Oc­to­ber 18.

The min­is­ter added that on Oc­to­ber 10 a com­pa­ny called Joint In­tegri­ty Man­age­ment Ser­vices in­di­cat­ed that two of its em­ploy­ees were there on con­tract with an Is­raeli oil com­pa­ny. How­ev­er, that group char­tered a flight and the work­ers left Is­rael on Oc­to­ber 15.

Browne said the min­istry was al­so made aware of three oth­er na­tion­als in Haifa, Is­rael.

He said luck­i­ly two of them had British cit­i­zen­ship and were booked on a repa­tri­a­tion flight or­gan­ised by that gov­ern­ment on Oc­to­ber 15.

But notwith­stand­ing all sev­en na­tion­als be­ing ac­count­ed for and evac­u­at­ed, Min­is­ter Browne said be­tween Oc­to­ber 13 to 21, two fam­i­lies, com­pris­ing 5 na­tion­als, made con­tact to say that they were al­so in Is­rael.

How­ev­er, these fam­i­lies opt­ed to stay.

“They are safe and we con­tin­ue to mon­i­tor,” he said.

He al­so made it clear that his min­istry was not aware of any T&T na­tion­al in Gaza.

As it re­lates to the war Browne said, “We call for an im­me­di­ate ces­sa­tion of the bomb­ings of Gaza and an im­me­di­ate end to at­tacks on civil­ian in­fra­struc­ture in­clud­ing at­tacks on hos­pi­tals, schools and oth­er fa­cil­i­ties,” he said.