Protesters fills downtown Toronto demanding a ceasefire in Gaza
Yhaacub Hans says he can’t work. He says he can’t sleep. His thoughts are focused on his family in Gaza and the civilians being killed around them every day.
His only reprieve from this looping mental anguish, he says, comes when he bands together with people who share his pain.
That’s why the Niagara mechanic donned his kaffiyeh and piled his wife, nephews, one-year-old daughter and 65-year-old aunt into his car and drove to what would become the largest pro-Palestinian demonstration in Toronto since the Israel-Hamas war broke out Oct. 7.
More than 25,000 protesters filled the city’s downtown streets Saturday in one of dozens of large-scale pro-Palestinian demonstrations around the world demanding a ceasefire in Gaza.
“I just pray to God that this violence stops,” said Hans. “It’s heartbreaking. Whether it’s on the Israeli side or Palestinian side, we’re against anybody dying. In our religion, if you save one person, it’s as if you save all humanity, but if you kill one person, it’s as if you killed all humanity.”
The Toronto protest began outside the U.S. Consulate General on University Avenue before winding its way through the downtown core, blocking major arteries with demonstrators as far as the eye could see.
Though large and boisterous, the protest was peaceful, and included many young families and babies in strollers. Also present were groups of pro-Palestinian Jews, members of the LGBTQ+ community, Indigenous Canadians and protesters from a range of ethnic backgrounds.
This rally, now a weekly affair in Toronto and growing larger each time, comes as the death toll continues to climb in Gaza.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rebuffed calls for a temporary ceasefire Friday until all hostages held by Hamas are released. More than 1,400 people were killed in southern Israel following Hamas’s surprise attack Oct. 7, while an estimated 240 others were taken hostage, Israel has said. According to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry, more than 9,500 Palestinians have been killed, including 3,900 children.
Hundreds of thousands demonstrated in cities around the world Saturday, including those in more than two dozen Canadian cities as well as in Paris, Washington, London, Berlin and Bucharest, who joined the call to demand Israel and Hamas lay down their arms.
Such rallies have received mixed reaction in the past month, reflecting the deeply felt and polarized views surrounding the war. Western countries expressed support for Israel to defend itself in the aftermath of the Hamas attack. There have subsequently been increasing calls for a pause in Israel’s military retaliation in the face of what many see as a humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
In Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal, protests were organized Saturday by the Palestinian Youth Movement, which has staged dozens of large-scale demonstrations in North America and Europe since the onset of the Israel-Hamas war.
PYM is supported by a new coalition of Jewish pro-Palestinian organizations in the GTA called “Jews Say No to Genocide.” Jewish protesters were visible throughout Saturday’s rally, wearing shirts with the coalition’s name on it and marching behind a banner reading, “Jews Against Israeli Apartheid.”
In Toronto, speakers at the demonstration denounced the evils of colonialism. A unifying chant, repeated end-to-end along the massive column of demonstrators was: “From Turtle Island to Palestine, occupation is a crime.”
“As a Native person from Turtle Island, colonization razed our land, stole our languages, murdered our children, murdered our women and murdered our elders. That’s our history,” said Joey Twins, 65, an Indigenous woman from Treaty 6 territory in Alberta.
Toronto’s four-hour rally was schedule to conclude by 6 p.m. Instead, hundreds of protesters remained behind for an additional three hours, sitting on Bay Street, between King and Wellington streets, flanked by police.
The marchers demanded Mayor Olivia Chow call for an immediate ceasefire and apologize “for maligning the Palestinian community.”
A spokesperson for Chow did not immediately respond to the Star’s request for comment.
Chow was criticized last month after calling a planned pro-Palestinian rally in Nathan Phillips Square “unsanctioned” and “deplorable.” She said she based her condemnation of the pro-Palestinian rally on an Instagram post advertising it as celebration of “heroic resistance” and the capture of “over 30 Zionist hostages.”
She apologized days into the Israel-Hamas war after issuing separate tweets about Middle East bloodshed that were meant to be read as one statement, blaming the limits of social media were part of the reason she “messed up.”
During the protest, speeches were made by independent MPP Sarah Jama and Holocaust survivor Suzanne Weiss, who both urged the Canadian government and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to call for a ceasefire.
Jama was censured at Queen’s Park and ejected from the NDP caucus last month after making a controversial statement that called out the “apartheid” against Palestinian people but failed to condemn Hamas’s surprise Oct. 7 attack against Israel. She later apologized but did not retract her original statement.
Canada and the United States are asking for a pause in the war to allow aid to reach the Gaza Strip, and let civilians and foreign nationals to leave.
Speaking from Washington on Saturday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau again supported a “humanitarian pause” in Gaza, correcting himself after almost saying “ceasefire,” instead.
Suzanne Weiss, 82, a Holocaust survivor, delivered an emotional speech in support of Palestinians. Weiss, who was born to Jewish parents, spent her childhood hiding from the Nazis on a farm in rural France, according to a biography provided by the organizers of the protest.
In her speech, she demanded action from the Canada’s government in support of a ceasefire.
“I’m a survivor of Adolf Hitler’s Holocaust,” she said. “As a Jew, I was locked down for death. I was saved by the unity and solidarity of many individuals,” she said.
With files from The Associated Press
This article was reported by The Star
