A Jewish school for girls in Toronto, Canada, was targeted early Saturday morning by gunfire, without causing any injuries, police announced, against a backdrop of tensions linked to the conflict in the Middle East.
Shortly before 5 a.m., shots were fired at Bais Chaya Mushka Girls’ Primary School in the North York neighborhood in the north of the city.
The suspects got out of a dark-colored vehicle and “opened fire on the school, damaging the facade of the establishment,” police inspector Paul Krawczyk said during a press briefing.
The police will strengthen their presence in the neighborhood, but also in other schools and synagogues.
“We’re not going to ignore the evidence, what happened here and who the target of the shooting was,” Krawczyk said. “But at the same time, it would be wrong to just speculate at this stage,” the inspector added.
This information led to a series of condemnations from Jewish politicians and organizations.
“Reports of shots fired at a Jewish elementary school in North York are abhorrent. The perpetrators of this brazen anti-Semitic act must be brought to justice,” Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on the social network X.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford denounced on the same platform a “blatant display of anti-Semitism” and the Friends of the Simon Wiesenthal Center (FSWC), a Jewish organization, said it was “horrified” by the shootings. .
“This shocking escalation of violence against innocent Jewish children should serve as a wake-up call to political leaders in our city and across our country,” said Michael Levitt, CEO of the FSWC.
In November, a Jewish faith school in Montreal, Quebec, was targeted twice in the same week by gunfire, without causing any injuries.
The war in the Gaza Strip began on October 7 after the attack on Israeli soil by Hamas fighters infiltrated from Gaza, leading to the death of more than 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP count carried out in based on official Israeli figures.
In response, the Israeli army launched a devastating offensive in the Palestinian territory, which left at least 35,903 dead, mainly civilians, according to data from the Health Ministry of the Hamas-led Gaza government.