Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) escalated its war crimes in the Gaza Strip disregarding the lives of civilians, who are paying the price of this escalation. Last Friday, 9 Palestinians were killed in the Gaza Strip. Seven of the victims, including 6 civilians that included 2 children, were killed by IOF excessive use of lethal force in El-Bureij refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip. In addition, 27 people, most of them civilians that included 12 children, were injured.

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Every once in a while Ibrahim Hawash, 42, calls his wife Noha from his nightshift job to make sure that she has followed the treatment course prescribed by their family doctor for the involuntary urination of their four children, who are in primary school. The doctor says that the four children lost their ability to control urination due to the fear they underwent when Israeli army jets bombed a home near theirs in the Jabalya refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip during the “Warm Winter” military campaign three weeks ago. The four children still remember the terrifying night when they woke frightened up to the sound of a thundering explosion in the area and found that the glass of their home’s windows had fallen onto their bed.

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Hundreds of protesters gathered in downtown Montreal on Saturday, March 15th to participate in an international day of action against the U.S. military occupation of Iraq and in Canadian cities in opposition to Canada’s military role in Afghanistan.

The current Israeli siege on the Gaza Strip was highlighted within the Montreal demonstration, as a Palestine focused contingent called for an end to Israeli apartheid. Protesters also directed attention on Canadian complicity towards Israeli military policies towards the Palestinians, which have left over one-hundred Palestinians dead in the past weeks.

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Yesterday, Occupation forces carried out a widespread demolition operation across the West Bank. Communities in the Jordan Valley were the hardest hit, although people in the Qalqilya district were also affected.

Around 9:00 in the morning, Occupation border police, soldiers and the so-called “civil administration” forces rolled into al-Hadidya with a bulldozer. Residents reported that a massive number of jeeps and soldiers surrounded the small community and began demolition quickly.

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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.

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Canada’s first trade accord signed outside the western hemisphere was with Israel in 1997. International trade relations with Canada, the U.S. and the European Union are essential components to Israel’s economy, creating external markets for Israeli products to be sold, while embedding Israeli economic activity within the international market. Today, Palestinians are appealing for an international campaign of boycott, divestment and sanctions on Israel, in response to the ongoing occupation of Palestine defined by a military enforced apartheid facing the Palestinian people.

Throughout the Middle East a strong campaign against the normalization of economic and political relations with Israel remains. Kole Kilibarda is an organizer with the Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid in Toronto, which is campaigning against the Israel-Canada free trade agreement. Kilibarda explains the details of the Canada-Israel trade agreement, while offering a critique on Canada’s interest in maintaining a trade accord with Israel.

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Listen to an interview with Sam Hadeeb from the Popular Committee Against the Siege in Gaza. In the face of ongoing Israeli military actions directed at the Gaza Strip, which have taken the lives of over one-hundred Palestinians within the past week — including children — a popular committee has formed in Gaza, which has been coordinating a series of popular direct actions and appealing for protests lead by social justice movements throughout the world.

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The Congress of South African Trade Unions is outraged and disgusted at the latest massacres by the Israeli Occupation Forces in Gaza, which have claimed an estimated 100 Palestinian lives in the past five days alone, most of them civilian women and children. The Israelis have even targeted ambulances, trapping the injured people inside.

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Feb. 13, Imad Moughniyeh, a senior commander of Hezbollah, was assassinated in Damascus. “The world is a better place without this man in it,” State Department spokesperson Sean McCormack said: “one way or the other he was brought to justice.” Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell added that Moughniyeh has been “responsible for more deaths of Americans and Israelis than any other terrorist with the exception of Osama bin Laden.”

Joy was unconstrained in Israel too, as “one of the U.S. and Israel’s most wanted men” was brought to justice, the London Financial Times reported. Under the heading, “A militant wanted the world over,” an accompanying story reported that he was “superseded on the most-wanted list by Osama bin Laden” after 9/11 and so ranked only second among “the most wanted militants in the world.”

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GAZA CITY: Two F-16 missiles were all it took to bring down the five-story headquarters of the Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions (PGFTU).

The Union, established in 1965, is one of the forerunners of the movement calling for an international boycott of Israel, and imposition of sanctions on it until Israel meets its obligations over UN resolutions, borders, and the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homeland.

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