It is our generation's moral test. Canada is failing it
When our children ask what we did as Gaza was systematically destroyed and its children killed, what will we say?
This isn't rhetoric — it's a reckoning. The ICJ found it plausible that Israel's actions could amount to genocide and issued six provisional measures, requiring Israel to prevent genocidal acts and incitement, allow humanitarian aid into Gaza and preserve evidence of potential crimes. Leading legal and genocide scholars have called for action.
This is echoed in a letter to Prime Minister Mark Carney by 412 Canadian experts in law, human rights and international relations — including former UN Ambassadors Stephen Lewis, Allan Rock, and Rosemary McCarney; UN Special Rapporteurs Michael Lynk, Leilani Farha, François Crépeau, John Dugard and Susan Bazilli; writers like Michelle Landsberg and Naomi Klein; and Alex Neve, former head of Amnesty Canada.
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Even former Israeli PM Ehud Olmert said war crimes are being committed.
Gaza is being erased in plain sight. Families lie buried beneath rubble. Aid is blocked. Mass graves grow.
Women cry as they mourn the death of a loved one killed during overnight Israeli bombardment on Thursday at al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City.
OMAR AL-QATTAA AFP via Getty Ima
Since the PM's joint statement with France and the U.K. warning of 'concrete actions' if Israel didn't halt its assault, 2,000 more Palestinians have been killed according to the Gaza health ministry. Since then, Israel announced 22 new illegal settlements in the West Bank and responded by launching a militarized 'aid' scheme with U.S. support, which has resulted in more deaths.
Medical teams from Médecins Sans Frontières and Doctors Against Genocide have reported that children in Gaza are undergoing amputations without anesthesia, hospitals are bombed and that starvation is being used as a weapon of war.
Across Europe, the tide is turning. Spain calls Israel a 'genocidal state' and has joined Ireland and Norway in recognizing Palestine. Slovenia has done the same. Belgium and Malta may be nex t.
Britain has suspended trade talks. France is actively pursuing peace negotiations.
But Canada remains stalled, offering symbolism instead of action.
This week, Ottawa joined Australia, New Zealand, Norway and the U.K. to sanction two Israeli ministers — Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich — for openly 'inciting violence against Palestinians in the West Bank.'
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Ottawa's sanctions are a historic step but simply sanctioning these ministers for articulating what has been apparent for the world to see over the past year and a half, is too little and too late.
Israel's illegal seizure of the U.K.-flagged Madleen — a civilian aid ship carrying food, medicine, and activists, including Greta Thunberg — laid bare its sense of impunity. Intercepted in international waters, its passengers were detained, and the aid confiscated. Israel released footage of activists receiving food — propaganda aimed at masking a clear breach of international law and the ICJ's binding order for unimpeded aid access.
Canada's response? Silence.
Action is long overdue. As a Rome Statute signatory, Canada is obligated to prosecute war crimes — no matter who commits them. In the past, we prosecuted Rwandan war criminals and denied entry to torturers from Latin America and Africa. Canadians should be assured that the country is investigating alleged Israeli war crimes, as well as Canadians who served in Gaza, with the same vigour as we have others in the past.
We have used Sections 34 to 36 of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act to bar entry to those involved in war crimes, terrorism, or crimes against humanity. We should do the same for any Israelis shown to have been involved in crimes in Gaza.
Finally, Canada must recognize Palestine, impose an arms embargo and support accountability through the ICC and ICJ. These are not symbolic gestures — they are legal and political tools that uphold international law and challenge impunity.
This picture, taken from a position on the Israeli border with the Gaza Strip, shows destroyed buildings in the besieged Palestinian territory on Wednesday.
JACK GUEZ AFP via Getty Images
Supporting the ICC and ICJ means affirming their jurisdiction, co-operating with investigations and advocating for enforcement of their rulings — including the ICJ's order for Israel to allow unimpeded humanitarian aid into Gaza. Canada should also ensure its own policies, including military exports and immigration law, align with these international legal obligations.
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Recognition of Palestinian statehood is not a reward — it is a long overdue affirmation of the Palestinian people's right to self-determination. Denying that right while Gaza is razed and the West Bank is carved up by settlements only entrenches the apartheid status quo. Recognition would send a clear message: that international law is not optional, that equal dignity must apply to all peoples and that statehood is not contingent on Israel's approval.
To delay recognition now — in the face of mass displacement, starvation, and systemic violence — is to signal that Palestinian lives are negotiable. It is not neutrality. It is complicity.
As Canadian novelist Omar El Akkad wrote, when the dust settles, everyone will claim they were always against the atrocities in Gaza. But history remembers actions.
Gaza is this generation's defining moral test. What we do now will be our answer when our children ask.
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