*A previous version of this story attributed all deaths committed by Hamas to rocket fire, when in reality some of them were committed by militants who entered the homes of Israeli citizens and also attacked attendants at a music festival.
With the continuation of the war in Gaza, the United Nations General Assembly voted in favor of Palestine demanding Israel to leave areas of Palestine within a year and to prevent the use of any weapons on Sept. 18. After this vote took place, Israel air strikes hit Lebanon, targeting Hezbollah, on Sept. 23. The air strike killed 492 people, including 35 children and 58 women, and wounded 1,645 people.
While the air strike continues, the prime minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, and the president of the State of Palestine, Mahmoud Abbas, spoke at the UN general assembly on Sept. 26 and raised their concerns for their country’s future.
Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, emphasized the need for peace and defended Israel against enemies seeking annihilation. While addressing his speech at the UN assembly he compared Israel’s actions to Moses’ timeless choice, stating that their actions will determine whether future generations will be blessed or cursed.
Palestinian President Abbas declared that Palestine would remain theirs, and if anyone were to leave, it would be the occupying usurpers. He emphasized the heinous crimes of Israel, including a war of genocide that has killed over 40,000 martyrs and injured over 100,000. He also highlighted the ongoing diseases, scarce clean water, and displacement of over two million Palestinians. Abbas emphasized that he was not responding to Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s lies.
The war between Israel and Palestine is ongoing but escalated on the morning of Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas attacked Israel by launching rockets, entering the homes of Israeli citizens and attacking concert attendants at a music festival. This ultimately ended the lives of 1,139 individuals, including 695 Israeli civilians and 36 children, as well as 373 members of security forces and 71 foreigners. And with Israel’s retaliation a total of 479 Palestinians, including 116 children, and 9 Israelis killed in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem. Community groups organized a rally to support Palestinians in the Israel- Gaza war at Kitchener City Hall on Aug. 25 to call for an “end to Canada’s ongoing complicity in the massacre against Palestinian people in Gaza and to demand a two-way arms embargo against the Zionist state,” as said on the Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM) Toronto’s Instagram.
The rally was organized by the Toronto PYM in collaboration with other local groups, such as the Public Service Alliance of Canada Local 902 (PSAC902), Sporas Palestinian Diaspora , Waterloo Region Friends of Palestine, O:se Kenhionhata:tie, Wilfrid Laurier University Palestinian Justice Club (PJC), Independent Jewish Voices Waterloo Region (IJV), Palestine Solidarity Kitchener Waterloo, Kitchener-Waterloo Palestine and University of Waterloo Voices for Palestine (UWVFP).
“We have come to a point where they have estimated that over thousands of people have been guaranteed to have died due to the occupational forces. This is not an event that started recently, this is a consequence of 75 or 76 years of imperial occupation,” said Nick Joseph, the media liaison for the PYM at the protest.
Protestors marched towards the Kitchener’s farmer’s market chanting, “Free, free, free Palestine” and “Justice is our demand.” The PYM has four demands from the Government of Canada that they state on their Instagram page: The government must lift the siege on Gaza, release all the Palestinian Prisoners from Zionist jails, call for an end to the 75-year occupation and settler-colonization of Palestine and push for an end to Western complicity in Zionism.
During the protest, the PYM representatives criticized the Canadian government’s stance on the war on Gaza, saying that while the UN declared it a possible genocide, they recently allowed General Dynamics Ordnance and Tactical Systems to provide Israel with 50,000 diffuses.
PYM representatives said they question the Canadian government’s support for Israel, its disregard for Palestinian and Gaza inhabitants and its leniency in allowing Israel to use explosives on innocent civilians.
“We realized that this is a global imperial project. The West has complicity in this colonial project, and we are demanding for the end of Western complicity in Zionism,” Joseph said.
The next protest organized by PYM will take place at Yonge and Dundas Square on Oct. 5 at 2 p.m
