QUESTION PERIOD — Global Affairs
Conflict in Gaza Strip
October 1, 2024
Senator Gold, on the very day that Canada abstained on a UN General Assembly resolution calling on Israel to vacate occupied Palestinian territory, we heard at the Standing Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs from humanitarian workers in Gaza. What we heard was that since the horrendous Hamas attack on October 7, the Israeli response has resulted in more than 40,000 dead, including upwards of 15,000-16,000 children. What is Canada doing to stop the carnage, and how is that going?
Thank you for your question. As I have stated before, harm caused and death caused to innocent civilians in any circumstance in Gaza is regrettable, and the government regrets each and every life lost.
The government also holds Hamas accountable, and properly so, for making a decision to build an underground tunnel system larger than the London subway; for placing command centres under hospitals, schools and UN buildings; for callously, deliberately and openly using children and women and innocent civilians as human shields. There was no occupation by Israel of Gaza on October 7. There was a ceasefire, which Hamas broke. Deaths are unfortunate in a war, and shameful is Hamas’ exploitation of human —
The resolution has to do with the West Bank, and you know full well there is an illegal occupation going on there, so I hope you address that as well. Do I take your answer, Senator Gold, to mean that the killing of the children is justified because of what Hamas did?
Senator, with all respect, that’s not what I said, and I’m not going to quote chapter and verse on the laws of war and just wars. It is that the death of any civilian is regrettable but was unavoidable when weapons, launchers and command centres are embedded in civilian areas. No country in the world would simply throw up their hands and say, “We have no right to defend ourselves.”
