Thousands of people gathered in downtown Montreal on Monday to remember the Palestinians and Israelis shot, injured or taken hostage on October 7, 2023 — and all those who have died since in the Gaza Strip.
The events organized on Monday, which also aimed to denounce the atrocities committed over the past year in this region of the Middle East, took place peacefully. Other demonstrations were planned for the evening.
Surrounded by a strong police presence, the vigil organized by the city’s Jewish community and the march led by pro-Palestinian groups were to meet in the afternoon in front of the main entrance to McGill University, in the heart of Montreal. But the feared overlap did not happen: those attending the vigil quickly dispersed once it was over, before the protest got there.
At lunchtime, Montrealers, including many members of the Jewish community, attended the vigil holding Israeli flags or signs bearing the faces of those still held hostage by Hamas. They listened to speeches and testimonies, sang songs in Hebrew and sang Israel’s national anthem.
Two walls of police protected the gathering at both ends, on Sherbrooke Street, in addition to a private security service which was on the lookout.
Fred Shahrabani, who carried a huge flag of the Jewish state, said he was sad on Monday, but wanted to be present to fight for peace, freedom and democracy. The man, who says he believes in “a two-state solution,” considers it important to find liberals on “both sides” to carry out this plan. He was accompanied by Muslim Iranians who wanted to show their solidarity and denounce Tehran’s actions in this conflict.
Let us recall that on October 7, 2023, Hamas fighters, from Gaza, entered Israeli territory to massacre civilians, triggering an imposing military response from the IDF, the Israeli army, which has not stopped since and which has even extended to other countries, including Lebanon.
March for Palestine
1 km away, Montrealers of various origins gathered, including a large number of students. In front of a Concordia University building, they denounced the Israeli bombs that have been falling on the Gaza Strip for a year. These attacks left more than 41,000 dead, according to Hamas government figures.
Much more numerous than the participants in the vigil, they were monitored by an equally more imposing police presence.
The demonstrators, many of whom had their faces masked, sometimes completely hidden under Palestinian keffiyehs, set out around 3 p.m. “Liberate Palestine” and “Stop bombing now,” they shouted.
Two students of Palestinian origin encountered in the crowd came to swell the ranks of the demonstration to alert public opinion to “the genocide which is taking place in Gaza and which did not begin on October 7, 2023”.
“It’s a very sad day,” said one of them, who did not want to reveal her name, saying she did not feel safe. She wanted to be there in solidarity for the Gazans.
In the marching crowd, Zev Saltiel, a young Jew, stood out because of his yarmulke and his t-shirt that read “Not in our name.” He says he feels indebted to Palestine, which welcomed his Holocaust survivor grandfather. In particular, he wanted to denounce the way the Palestinian people are treated.
Arriving near McGill University, a small group managed to enter the campus, closed to the public, to wave their Palestinian flags. He was quickly pushed back by mounted police. Not far from there, some demonstrators threw paint, made graffiti and broke windows of a building under construction, said Manuel Couture, public relations officer for the Montreal Police Service (SPVM).
Zaina Karim, a spokesperson for the group Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights McGill, co-organizer of the event, said the march was intended to let McGill and Concordia know that students will not stop protesting until their demands are met. not satisfied. For a year, they have demanded that the two universities cut all their ties — including their investments — with companies that supply weapons to Israel to crush the Palestinians.
Students do not want their tuition fees to be used to “finance genocide”. “We don’t want to be complicit,” she summarized.
Monday afternoon, the head of the SPVM, Fady Dagher, clarified that his police force had not heard of any “planned and structured” threat. The large police presence aimed to ensure that “this historic day could take place peacefully,” he said.
He made a point of mentioning the work carried out upstream with the different communities, whose leaders “succeeded, in silence, invisible, [à faire] really make a difference in their own community so that these demonstrations can [se faire de façon] peaceful “.
Mr. Dagher added that the increased visibility of police officers would be felt for several more weeks.