Warning: This story contains an image of the Israeli flag being burned.
Large-scale pro-Palestinian demonstrations filled the streets of downtown Montreal Tuesday afternoon as part of a series of planned demonstrations to mark two years of war in Gaza.
Dozens of CEGEP and university student associations across the city, representing more than 46,000 students, voted to strike on Monday and Tuesday in support of Palestinians and the tens of thousands killed by Israeli forces in Gaza over the last two years.
At around 1 p.m., protesters, many of them wearing keffiyehs, formed a large huddle near the corner of Mackay Street and de Maisonneuve Boulevard. Dozens of police officers were stationed nearby.
Earlier Tuesday morning, Concordia University announced it was shutting down its downtown campus to avoid ”potentially obstructive” protests.
“Unless already scheduled, faculty may choose to switch to remote delivery, if feasible,” wrote Graham Carr, Concordia University’s president and vice-chancellor in an email to students.
Carr stated that the institution made the decision to close the campus on Tuesday to “protect our entire community.”
“In the last two years, we have seen protests on campus but have never been forced to enact such preventive measures,” he wrote.
Tuesday marks the two-year anniversary since Hamas’s attack in southern Israel that killed 1,200 people and led to about 250 people taken hostage in Gaza, according to Israeli tallies. Israel believes there are still 48 hostages in Gaza, 20 of which would be alive.
A day after the Hamas attack in 2023, Israel formally declared war on Hamas — and the military campaign that has followed has killed more than 67,000 people, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.
The scope of Israel’s military response has led to the International Criminal Court issuing arrest warrants for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defence minister and has led to accusations that Israel is committing genocide — a claim echoed last month by a United Nations Commission of Inquiry.
Israel has insisted that the arrest warrants and the claims it is committing genocide are absurd.
After demonstrations Monday, more were held Tuesday, filling areas like Square-Victoria–OACI Metro station with people holding signs denouncing genocide and calling for divestment from Israel. The dense crowd of people, blowing horns and chanting, marched shoulder to shoulder through downtown streets.
Many demonstrators waved Palestinian flags while some ignited smoke bombs. At one point, an Israeli flag was burned.
Among the demonstrators was Université de Montréal student Ibtissam Machhouri. She said it is important for health-care students like herself to “denounce the genocide that is happening right now.”
She said people in Gaza, including health-care workers and journalists, are being starved and killed, and “we don’t agree that our money, our investments, are being sent there to support that genocide.”
Aya Hafeda, a spokesperson for an Université de Montréal Palestinian solidarity group known by its French acronym SDHPP, said thousands of students have signed on to demands that include divesting from Israel, taking a public stance against Israel similar to the one made in support of Ukraine and granting amnesty to students and staff who speak out in support of Palestinians.
“Students have been speaking out for over two years now,” she said while accusing school administrations of being more focused on profits than representing the student body. “We are here to mobilize all of our students to make a message clear to our administrations that two years of genocide — even one day of genocide — has crossed the red line.”
Rabbi Josh Berkowitz, known as “Rabbi Josh,” acts as clergy for the Chabad Student Group at Concordia University. He said many students feel the school was caught off guard by the disruptions, adding they are causing issues for students of all backgrounds — no matter their stake in the conflict — who have been preparing for weeks for midterm exams.
“And people are really upset,” said Berkowitz in an interview with CBC News Monday evening.
He said students want to sit their exams but people are barging in with covered faces and megaphones.
He said Concordia is not a comfortable or safe place anymore for students who have any kind of Jewish identification on them.
“It’s not a safe place to learn right now if they’re not willing to enforce the rules,” said Berkowitz of the university.
He also said that from his perspective, at least some of the gatherings that have taken place on the anniversary of Oct. 7 over the past two years have been celebratory in nature.
“People are disturbed by it,” he said.
