A large number of people gathered in Repenty, which, on Friday to ask the Federal Government to adopt an embargo on weapons in Israel, which is about to receive a new shipment this weekend from one of the largest weapons companies in Canada.
The groups behind the protest, which have been tracking the shipments of ammunition to Israel, tell CBC News that a shipping of cartridges came out on Friday from the manufacturing plant of cartridges and tactical systems of the tactical systems of Montreal to Israel.
A General Dynamics spokesman Berkley Whaley said that “shipments are for non -lethal training materials that do not require an export permit.”
He did not answer specific questions about the size of the caliber, who was the end user of the ammunition or that he was being trained, Rama Al Malah questions, with the Montreal chapter of the Palestinian Youth Movement and one of the organizations behind the protest, says he wants to answer.
“If they are being used indirectly in Gaza, it is still contributing directly to the murder of the Palestinians,” Al Malah told.
“The public has been, you know, demanding transparency in what is being manufactured exactly in our rear courtyards, which is exactly being sent from our cities.”
Last month, a coalition of non -governmental organizations (Baggy eyes), including two of the groups behind Friday’s protest, published a report that shows Canadian goods that enter Israel, described by the Israeli government as parts and ammunition of military weapons. In a statement of August 2, federal officials said that a series of claims in the report are “deceitful and significantly misrepresent the facts.”
Global Affairs Canada has a prohibition of the export of military equipment that could be used in Gaza, an average measure according to al. Malah.
“Once these weapons leave Canada, they have no supervision about where this is being used. Therefore, we are sending weapons knowing that there is the possibility that it will be used in Gaza, it will be used to feed this genocide,” he said.
In the statement, the Canadian government insisted It has not issued, as of January 2024, any new permit for military goods and technology that could be used in Gaza, and suspended existing permits, however, Israeli import data and publicly available shipping records seem to contradict that statement.
General Dynamics had sent a similar cartridge shipment on July 17, telling CBC News at that time that palettes contained “simunition” or white training rounds for small weapons.
When asked Friday about how Canada’s global issues ensures that the military teams made in Canadian are not used in the Gaza Strip or if they would try to regulate the training team for the Israel Defense Forces, the Federal Department simply pointed to CBC News to that statement from the beginning of this month.
Nor did he answer questions about why Canada has not adopted a two -way embargo on Israel as protesters are asking.
Al Malah says that it is significant given the moral implications of buying Israeli manufacturing weapons, since the country is simultaneously using those weapons against the Palestinians.
‘These companies are mobile’
Dr. Sarah Lalonde says that she has seen first -hand the effect of the weapons on civilians while offering as a volunteer in the European Hospital of Gaza in the Southern Gaza Strip, earlier this year. She was among the speakers in the protest.
She said she remembers having seen a surgeon take a bullet from the sternum of a child and be horrified at the possibility of being done in Canada once the report came out last month.
Global Affairs Canada says that the articles listed as “bullets” in that report, totaling more than 420,000, are Paintball -style projectiles, accompanied by equipment that are not operable with traditional rounds.
“These cannot be used in combat, and if they were, they would require a permit that is not granted,” reads the statement of August 2.
Lalonde says he will continue to advocate his patients abroad, until he can return to Gaza once more.
She says that an embargo on Israel is only one of several actions that Canada should take following the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, which also describes as a genocide.
Al Malah says that an embargo is not out of reach, pointing to the 13 states that agreed to an embargo on a conference in Bogotá in July, Oa Calian, based in Ottawa, who stopped his shipments to Israel after they were subject to scrutiny.
“We know this is a long -term struggle,” Al Malah told. “We know that these companies are mobile and, therefore, our work is to continue, you know, press our elected officials and these companies to eliminate these permits and stop these shipments.”
