Canadians from Gaza call for immediate reversal of governmental silence
- Press Release: Monday, March 12th, 2008
- Image: A child inspects a home in Gaza damaged by Israeli bulldozers.
Canada’s government has failed to respond to the ongoing crisis in the Gaza Strip.
Today, Montreal families recently visiting relatives in Gaza remain trapped under the Israeli bombardment, having received no assistance from Canadian consulate authorities in the Middle East or in Ottawa.
One Palestinian family from Montreal – including two Canadian-born children – has been stuck in Gaza since the recent escalation of Israeli violence against the Palestinian people.
In another case, a Palestinian from Montreal – father of three – escaped Gaza weeks ago, after Palestinians briefly breached the Egypt-Gaza border. A dangerous voyage from Gaza through the Egyptian desert made it impossible for the entire Canadian family, including small children, to travel from Gaza back to Canada.
Today, the Canadian children from Montreal remain in the southern Gaza Strip and in constant danger, due to the ongoing Israeli military assault. Repeated calls to Canadian authorities have resulted in no response and now these Palestinian-Canadians are demanding answers and will make a public statement to the media.
Additional cases of Palestinian-Canadians remaining trapped in the Gaza Strip are now documented, all of which have received no assistance or support from the Canadian government.
Despite the horrific violence of recent events in Gaza, a cynical disregard for value of life in the Middle East has once again been asserted by the Conservative Government in Canada, lead by a Prime Minister who in 2006 labeled Israeli’s military bombardment of Lebanon, in which over one-thousand Lebanese civilians died, “a measured response”.
Over one-hundred Palestinians have been killed in the past week and hundreds more injured – as a result of ongoing Israeli military air strikes on Gaza – igniting a storm of international condemnation towards the Israeli assault, which the U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon described as a “disproportionate and excessive use of force that has killed and injured so many civilians, including children.”
In light of the ongoing Israeli siege on Gaza, Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights (SPHR) and Tadamon! are issuing a series of demands to the Canadian government;
1: Canada must immediately activate an effective plan to offer assistance to Canadian citizens currently trapped in the ongoing Israeli siege of Gaza;
2: Canada must immediately reverse a negative decision towards a critical U.N. Human Rights Council resolution calling “for immediate international action to force Israel to allow fuel, food, medicine and other essential items to be sent to the Gaza Strip.” Canada was the only nation internationally to vote against the humanitarian resolution;
3: Canada must immediately reassert its recognition of Israel’s ongoing occupation of the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem as illegal; according to an international legal consensus as ratified by the U.N.
* Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights
Tel: 514 999 1948
sphr.national@gmail.com
* Tadamon!
Tel: 514 664 1036
tadamon[at]resist.ca
Canada fought to deter aggression in WW2 and Korea. We were told in Gulf war one that Saddam was the aggressor, invader of Kuwait. Now we are to believe the aggressors USA and Isreal are in the right. Pull the other one. Hezbollah are no more terrorists than the French underground in Nazi occupied France. Canada needs to address the poverty and inequality we have here at home as well. ps Don’t let them “Asper”tame the news it is bias enough already. Doug H Cunningham
Comment by Doug Cunningham — March 14th, 2008 @ 4:48 PMIn respect of Palestine, the official attitude of Western governments raising the mantle of democracy and human rights and preaching them to the world can only be understood as condoning the conviction that occupied peoples have no right to resist, are not entitled to due processes under any law, local or international Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, prisons in Israel), the results of their democratically free and honest elections are unacceptable if they oppose the occupier and Western wishes and, finally, that the occupiers are entitled to commit any sort of atrocity in trying to subdue the occupied who, after all, have no right to resist acording to the new Western/Zionist dictum.
Comment by Faisal Ben Khadra — March 15th, 2008 @ 1:15 AMok
Comment by ammar — March 16th, 2008 @ 3:31 AM