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MONTREAL – With prayers, protests, and a heavy police presence, Canada has marked the anniversary of the October 7, 2023, attack by Hamas on Israel that killed about 1,200 people and sparked an ongoing war.
Children arrived at Jewish schools under police surveillance in cities including Vancouver and Toronto.
Mourners remembered the victims of the attacks and prayed for the safe return of hostages seized by Hamas, while others demonstrated against Israeli military action in Gaza which has killed more than 41,000 Palestinians, according to the territory’s health ministry.
Events were mostly uneventful, but in Montreal, what started as a large and peaceful pro-Palestinian march through the city center ended with police using chemical irritants and large numbers to chase down a group of protesters who used metal bars to break the doors and windows of a terraced house under construction belonging to McGill University.
A masked speaker with a megaphone said he was supposed to be part of a sports science organization named after Israeli-Canadian billionaire Sylvan Adams, and urged the protesters to “take your anger out on the building.”
For the past year, the Hamas attack and the ensuing war have been at the center of widespread protests, university encampments, and a sharp increase in reports of hate crimes against Jews and Muslims.
In Montreal, hundreds of people gathered in the city to mark the anniversary with speeches, wreath-laying and prayers while crowds of pro-Palestinian protesters shouted and police kept watch.
Channa Leah Natanblut, Concordia student and one of the speakers, said that Jews are hurting and grieving and that it is important to deal with that sadness and show strength.
“It’s been a very hard year, but I think it’s important to show other Jews that we’re not intimidated by the violence we’ve seen on the streets of Montreal… their fear tactics they don’t work on us,” said Natanblut.
In the separate protest march from Concordia University to McGill, some protesters ran down a side entrance to the closed campus off the McGill campus, knocking down a metal barricade manned by campus security.
That group was confronted by a group of police on horseback, before being chased back off campus by the police who ran at them, beating batons on shields.
At the start of the march, McGill student Rama Al Malah said students were there to commemorate one year since the start of what he called “a campaign of mass genocide against the people of Gaza.” He said the student protesters wanted to reaffirm their support for Palestinians and reiterated calls to Concordia and McGill, including a divestment from companies associated with the Israeli war effort and an academic boycott of Israeli institutions.
Thousands of Israel supporters gathered in Toronto’s north end on Monday night, many of them holding pictures of hostages or waving small Israeli flags.
Mayan Shavit, who lost two members of her family, an aunt on October 7 and a cousin who was among six hostages killed in August, said she was in “disbelief” to see so many people in the incident.
“One year ago on October 7, 2023, we woke up to a world completely turned upside down,” he said. “I don’t know what world we woke up to, but it wasn’t the world we all knew.”
Jeff Rosenthal, chairman of the United Jewish Appeal-Federation of Greater Toronto, thanked local officials who attended the event, including Premier Doug Ford.
“Tonight, we come together to reflect and to remember the lives that were lost, the communities that were shattered a year ago and the remaining hostages that we so desperately want back home.”
The mother of a Montreal man killed in Hamas attacks on October 7 told a gathering in that city that the events of the past year have given her family the opportunity to see the best and worst of humanity.
Raquel Look said her 33-year-old son Alexandre Look died a hero while protecting others after the music festival he was attending came under attack.
“I know that Alex has infused my soul with the strength to keep going, and I will work tirelessly to build a future based on peace and cooperation for all,” he said.
Long lines formed outside a Vancouver synagogue as people attending a memorial service had to pass through metal detectors and be scanned by security wands.
Politicians of all stripes attended the event, including NDP Leader David Eby and BC Conservative Leader John Rustad, who is halfway through an election campaign.
Police in major cities stepped up security during the anniversary.
Children were dropped off by parents at Talmud Torah elementary school in Vancouver on Monday morning under the supervision of police in bulletproof vests and at least one police dog.
Allie Saks, who has two children attending Talmud Torah, broke down in tears when asked about the police presence and the unease of parents.
“It’s hard to drop your child off somewhere where you have to see the police in front of you,” Saks said. “And it’s emotional for all of us. We are all in a state of mourning today and for the whole year – until our hostages come home. “
Chief Constable of the Vancouver Police. Adam Palmer said last week that protests posed a “significant” risk of disorder on Monday, and officers specifically trained for large-scale incidents were being deployed.
The pro-Palestinian group Samidoun was planning a Vancouver rally which it promoted by referring to the October 7 attacks as the “Al-Aqsa Flood,” Hamas’ code name for the operation.
A Toronto police van was parked in front of a Hebrew day school along Bathurst Street in one of the city’s best-known Jewish neighbourhoods. On the corner, there was a large poster calling for the return of hostages.
Just up the road, on the Sherman Campus, a sprawling hub of Jewish groups and agencies, preparations were being made for a memorial event planned for Monday night.
A spokesperson for the Greater Toronto UJA Federation, which hosted the evening event, said it was important to gather to “remember all the lives that were tragically lost on October 7 in Israel, but also to recognize that this situation is still a live situation.”
“This is not an opportunity where we remember something that happened. We still have more than 100 hostages, including family members of Canadians, who are in Gaza being held by Hamas,” said Sara Lefton, the organization’s chief development officer.
The families of some victims also launched a lawsuit on Monday over the attack.
Tiferet Lapidot’s father, along with other Canadians who lost family members in the attack, filed a claim in Ontario Superior Court seeking $250 million in damages under Canada’s Justice for Victims of Terrorism Act, plus an additional $100 million.
The claim lists Hamas, various Palestinian organizations, Iranian and Syrian leaders and several Canadian individuals and groups among the defendants.
It claims that all the defendants are in some way responsible or liable for the losses and damages caused by the deaths. None of the allegations have been proven in court.
Family members said the last time they heard from Lapidot was in a phone call from the Supernova music festival near Israel’s border with the Gaza Strip, where Hamas launched its attack.
“Her mother called at nine o’clock in the morning, telling her that she loved her and that they were shooting young people around,” her uncle, Harel Lapidot, said on Monday at an event in Toronto to mark the birthday.
A year later, the family’s grief over the loss of the young woman they described as their “sunshine” is “getting worse day by day,” her uncle said. She was one of at least eight people with links to Canada who died that day.
“That is the most horrible thing for us as a family to lose Tiferet. Tiferet was a happy young woman … who danced at a festival,” he said.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told an event in Ottawa that members of the Jewish community in Canada continue to feel the effects of October 7, including when people wave Hamas and Hezbollah flags and fellow Canadians dismiss their pain.
“You relive it when the term Zionist is thrown around as a blasphemy, a label for something other than what it really means, believing in the right of Jewish people, like everyone, to determine their future,” he said.
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre also addressed the crowd criticizing the government’s views on the war and its handling of protests and attacks on Jewish institutions.
“This ideology which seeks to divide our people on the basis of race and ethnicity which has led to these horrific cases of hatred is not from the bottom up. They are from the top down,” he said.
Monday’s events took place against a backdrop of escalating hostilities in the Middle East.
Hamas, which remains in control of the bombarded Gaza Strip, marked the anniversary by firing a barrage of rockets into Tel Aviv.
Lebanon’s Hezbollah vowed to maintain its own rocket fire despite recent losses in southern Lebanon, where Israel has been conducting ground attacks.
This report was first published by The Canadian Press on October 7, 2024.
— With files from Jordan Omstead in Toronto, Sidhartha Banerjee in Montreal, Chuck Chiang in Vancouver and The Associated Press.
(Except translation, this story has not been edited by achinews staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
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