Salma arrives at Pearson

One young Brantford girl is back home on Canadian soil tonight after being trapped in Gaza for the past month. Miranda Anthistle is at Pearson International Airport with the latest.

It’s been just over an hour since 8-year old Salma Abuzaiter was reunited with her mother and brothers here at Toronto International Airport. And it was an extremely emotional meeting for all of them. Especially for her mother who has been fighting to get Salma back for a little over a month now, ever since fighting erupted between Palestine and Israel.

Now Salma was in Gaza visiting family when the fighting broke out. Her father Hasan is actually an ER physician there who is working around the clock, helping wounded civilian children.

According to his wife Wesan, he didn’t feel he could leave his duties as a doctor, safely transport his daughter out of the conflict zone. There was an opportunity for Salma to be escorted along with 47 other Canadian citizens back in July. But her mother says it just wasn’t safe for an 8-year old to travel by herself on a bus through Gaza and over to Jordan.

The 72-hour break in the fighting allowed her father to escort her to the Israeli border where she was met by Canadian officials who put her on a plane from Jordan here to Toronto.

It was an overwhelming meeting for all of them. Of course, Salma being very young, didn’t have much to say. But her mother was very overjoyed at seeing her daughter and she had this to say: “I am so happy and I would like to thank everybody. Thank you Canada so much, I really appreciate that I got my baby back again, thank you. It’s an incredible feeling. It’s fantastic.”

The Abuzaiter’s immigrated to Brantford back in 2009 and only recently, about 6 months ago, obtained their Canadian citizenship.

Hasan is still in Gaza and will remain there, perhaps for a month, or even a year — she says it just depends.