Labour activists and Palestinian groups called Wednesday for an immediate ceasefire in the besieged Gaza Strip during a downtown “solidarity rally” at Ottawa’s human rights monument.
Hassan Husseini, a negotiator with the Public Service Alliance of Canada and a member of the advocacy group Labour for Palestine, told about 200 people that bombs continued to rain down on the people of Gaza.
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“Every day there are massacres that are being committed,” said Husseini, who characterized Israel as a racist, apartheid state.
Husseini condemned as shameful the Canadian government’s failure to demand an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.
“It is providing cover for atrocities,” said Husseini.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Tuesday he would support “humanitarian pauses” in the Israeli war against Hamas to allow humanitarian aid into the territory and to give foreign nationals the chance to leave. He stopped short of calling for a ceasefire.
Hamas has been designated a terrorist entity by Canada, the United States and the European Union.
Trudeau has said Israel has the right to defend itself against Hamas in accordance with international law.
“Saying Israel has the right to defend itself is complicity in the genocide that is taking place right now,” Husseini told the crowd Wednesday.
He also suggested western leaders who had denounced Hamas for its terror attacks on Israeli women and children were poorly placed to judge their actions. “You do not get to tell a colonized people how to fight for their liberation,” Husseini said. “If anything, this exposes your white liberal guilt and fragility, and even supremacy. So please spare us.”
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Aseel Munir, a member of the Ottawa chapter of the Palestinian Youth Movement, said Wednesday’s rally was organized in response to Germany’s decision to impose a blanket ban on protests in support of Palestine.
“All over the world, there have been active and relentless attempts to suppress the voices that advocate for the freedom of Palestinians,” Munir said, arguing that CUPE Ontario President Fred Hahn and NDP MPP Sarah Jama had both been unfairly attacked for their support of Palestinian rights.
James Hutt, a representative of Labour for Palestine and an organizing officer for the Canadian Association of University Teachers, said the labour movement had to join the fight for Palestinian liberation. “It’s very clear we need to end the brutal — I’m not going to say war — I’m going to say genocide and war crimes against Palestinians,” he said.
Among the protesters who gathered for the rally Wednesday were Ibrahim Kayed, and his daughter, Jenna, a Carleton University student. Kayed grew up in a Palestinian refugee camp in southern Lebanon after his family had been forced from their northern village of Safsaf by Israeli forces in October 1948 during the first Arab-Israeli War.
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There’s evidence from both Palestinian and Israeli sources that a massacre took place following the town’s surrender.
Kayed came to Canada as a refugee in 1987. He said the events of the past two weeks had deeply saddened him.
“I am very sad. I can’t express my feelings,” Kayed said. “Where is the justice in the world? We need justice for everybody.”
Jenna said too many in the western media painted the Palestinian cause as a terrorist one. “It feels very dehumanizing,” she said. “It feels like they don’t care about violence when it’s being directed at Palestinians. No one talks about the inhumane acts that are occurring against the people of Gaza every day.”
According to the United Nations, more than 5,000 Palestinians have been killed and more than 15,000 injured since Israel launched air strikes on Gaza in response to the Oct. 7 terror attack inside Israel. More than 1,300 Israelis were killed in that surprise attack, and another 200 were taken hostage.
Israel has imposed a total blockade of food, fuel and other supplies from entering Gaza and ordered one million people to leave the northern section of the Gaza Strip as it prepares a land invasion.
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Israeli forces completely withdrew from the Gaza Strip in September 2005. But in 2007, following the Hamas takeover of Gaza from the Palestinian Authority, Israel imposed an air, land and sea blockade on the territory.
Hamas describes itself as a Palestinian Islamic national liberation and resistance movement; its founding charter calls for the elimination of Israel and a commitment to resisting its occupation by any and all means.
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