Thousands of Canadians remain stranded in Iran and Israel as Ottawa raises risk levels

In his hotel room in Tel Aviv, Canadian Artur Wilczynski has quickly adopted a routine intended to keep him alive: His smartphone flashes an alert that missiles are incoming, and he heads to a sub-basement bomb shelter to wait out the latest attack by Iran, listening for the exploding sky to go quiet again. Right now, there’s no way back to Canada for the retired public servant, who was visiting Israel from Ottawa as part of an international delegation invited by the country’s foreign ministry to meet with members of the LGBTQ+ community.