Montreal, September 23, 2024 — As today marks the deadliest day of Israeli air strikes in Lebanon since 2006, Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East (CJPME) condemns Canada’s failure to avert Israel’s belligerence. CJPME reiterates its call for Canada to immediately impose a full Arms Embargo on Israel using the Special Economic Measures Act (SEMA.) CJPME points out that – with Gaza and the West Bank – this is the third brutal battlefront that Israel has opened against its neighbours in the past year, and Canada continues to repeat meaningless and erroneous platitudes about Israel’s “right to self-defence.”  Meanwhile, Canada ignores grave breaches of international law, like Israel’s genocide in Gaza, and its reckless “pager attack” in Lebanon last week.

“Israel is conducting a multifront ethnic cleansing campaign in Gaza and the West Bank and is now opening a third front with Southern Lebanon. This is shameless brutality, with colonial overtones, by a racist Israeli government propped up by Canada, the US and their allies,” said Thomas Woodley, President of CJPME. “Canada had nearly a year to calibrate an effective response to Israel's genocide in Gaza, violent land theft in the West Bank, and its war with Hezbollah. It has now failed to deter Israel from escalating its attacks and violations of international law throughout Lebanon,” added Woodley.

Earlier today, Lebanon’s Health Ministry announced that at least 365 people, including at least 21 children, had been killed and 1,246 wounded in Israeli attacks in Lebanon.  These attacks follow on the heels of an Israeli attack last week via pagers and walkie-talkies which left dozens dead, including children, and thousands wounded in Lebanon.  Reckless and indiscriminate attacks that fail to distinguish between civilians and combatants are strictly illegal under international law.  Canada still has not condemned last week’s pager attacks by Israel.  “After a year of Israel’s devastating violence and forced displacement in Gaza and the West Bank, our hearts only ache more for the civilians in Lebanon who have been killed, wounded, or forced to flee their homes,” continued Woodley.

CJPME points out that Canada was well aware that tensions have escalated significantly between Israel and Hezbollah over the past year yet did nothing.  The BBC reported in July that between 8 October 2023 and 5 July 2024, Israel carried out over 6000 cross border attacks in Lebanon, while Hezbollah carried out only about one fifth that number.  “Canada’s talk about limiting arms to Israel is consistently vague and half-hearted,” asserted Woodley, “while Israel’s attacks on Lebanon could easily begin to resemble the conflict in Gaza.”  CJPME points out that Israel also hacked the Lebanese communications system prior to today’s attack, sending messages urging residents to evacuate homes in Southern Lebanon and parts of Beirut accused of storing weapons for Hezbollah.  “Given Israel’s history of using misinformation to justify its actions in Gaza, these new messages are highly suspect,” continued Woodley. “With residential areas and civilians already under attack, there is a serious risk of escalation, potentially targeting civilians under the pretext of security threats.”

CJPME notes that since January, Canada claims to have paused the approval of all new arms export permits to Israel. But this does nothing to address the hundreds of existing permits that were already approved before the pause came into effect. As of August, nearly $95m of military goods had been approved to ship to Israel by the end of 2025. However, this certainly represents a small fraction of the existing permits that are still active. Moreover, the public doesn’t know what these permits were for, how the decision was made, or if they will be completely cancelled – and Canada has refused to provide these details.

CJPME points out that SEMA was created to enable Canada to take economic measures against states which commit grave breaches of international peace, and/or gross and systematic human rights violations. “If not now, when will Canada ever take punitive action against this war-crazed Netanyahu government?” questioned Woodley.  In addition to the arms embargo, CJPME also calls on Canada to withdraw its military forces from Red Sea operations against Yemen and to push the US to engage in a comprehensive regional peace plan involving Iran.