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About 100 people gathered in central Québec City, Canada, on August 14 to hold vigil for the journalists murdered by Israel in Gaza and protest the Canadian government’s complicity in Israel’s genocide.

Israel, as part of a to silence on-the-ground reporting, has killed nearly 270 Palestinian journalists and media workers in Gaza since October 2023 — more than in .  

Israel has conducted a systematic campaign to obscure the reality of its mass killings, starvation regime and destruction of civilian infrastructure.

People at the vigil gathered in a circle around photos of the murdered journalists — many of whom were among the last remaining independent voices documenting Israel’s genocide in Gaza — while chanting in Arabic, French and English.

One of the chants, “Israel terrorises, Canada complicit”, highlighted Canada’s role in enabling Israel’s genocide of Palestinians.

The report, released on July 29, analysed shipping records and Canadian and Israeli government data, exposing the government’s lies about ending arms shipments.

Former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau publicly in July last year that “we’ve stopped exports of arms to Israel”. The current government has continually claimed that it has put a stop to lethal arms exports — Prime Minister Mark Carney in April that Canada has an “arms embargo” on Israel.

Despite claims to the contrary, the report found that the government has continued to approve military export permits to Israel. Canadian companies ship military goods — such as bullets, drone and fighter jet parts and electronic warfare components — to Israel in violation of Canadian and international law. 

Other shipments are sent to the United States and then re-exported to Israel, using loopholes in Canadian law.

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Nearly 270 journalists and media workers have been killed by the IDF in Gaza since October 7, 2023. Photo: Ben Radford

The government has sought to disguise these exports under the label “non-lethal”, despite the clear role they play in the Israeli military’s killing machine. The report noted: “Officials have downplayed the lethality of the goods being exported, attempted to hide ongoing shipments behind a pause in new permit approvals, made shifting and contradicting claims about having restricted or even stopped arms exports — all to conceal Canada’s role in the ongoing genocide in Gaza.”

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) and the International Criminal Court have both reiterated that arms transfers to Israel are in violation of international law, given the ongoing risk of genocide and war crimes. In May, the ICJ Israel to halt its assault on Rafah and called on governments to stop aiding Israel’s military campaign.

Canada is a signatory to the Arms Trade Treaty, which prohibits weapons exports when there is a substantial risk that the arms will be used to commit war crimes or genocide. Yet the government continues to flout its legal obligations, prioritising military contracts and profits over international law and human lives.