Responding to the call of a broad coalition of civil organizations, a large crowd of demonstrators on Saturday demanded a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip and an end to Canada’s “complicity” with Israel.
Despite the cold and snow that fell in downtown Montreal on Saturday, around 2,000 people gathered at Dorchester Square at the invitation of the Quebec URGENCE Palestine Coalition. The initiative has so far been endorsed by 228 organizations and 150 public figures.
The event began with a series of speeches demanding an immediate ceasefire in the Gaza Strip and the free flow of humanitarian aid intended there, but also “the cessation of Canadian military exports, direct and indirect, towards Israel and the lifting of the siege” of the Palestinian territory.
An essential measure to “protect civilians and allow people stuck in this mousetrap to have access to water, medicine and the humanitarian aid to which they are entitled”, insisted the president of the CSN, Caroline Senneville , who spoke at the event.
PHOTO JOSIE DESMARAIS, THE PRESS
Caroline Senneville, president of the CSN
In turn, the speakers spoke of the scenes of horror that arrive daily from the Palestinian enclave, where more than 32,000 people have died since the start of the conflict between Israel and Hamas on October 7.
“What we are witnessing in Gaza is not a war between Hamas and Israel, but a deliberate massacre by the Israeli army against the population of Gaza,” said a member, loudspeaker in hand. of the board of directors of the League of Rights and Freedoms, Diane Lamoureux.
Of Palestinian origin, solidarity MP Ruba Ghazal referred to the forced exodus of Palestinians after the creation of the State of Israel in 1948. The Nakba (“catastrophe” in Arabic), as well as the Palestinians call him, pushed his parents towards Lebanon.
PHOTO JOSIE DESMARAIS, THE PRESS
Solidarity MP Ruba Ghazal delivered a speech at the rally.
“Today in Gaza we are witnessing a second Nakbaeven bloodier, more murderous, more barbaric, more violent than ever,” she said, then recalling that more than a million people had been displaced due to the conflict.
Director Anaïs Barbeau-Lavalette told the story of a woman she met during a two-year stay in Palestine and who has lost 58 members of her family since the start of the conflict.
PHOTO JOSIE DESMARAIS, THE PRESS
Anaïs Barbeau-Lavalette
Several Palestine solidarity groups created since the start of the conflict by Montrealers in different neighborhoods of the metropolis were also represented at the demonstration.
Following the speeches, demonstrators marched to the Guy-Favreau complex, not far from Chinatown. Another demonstration organized by Quebec Palestine is planned for Sunday, in front of the Parliament building in Quebec.