A crowd of about 150 people pushed out the doors of the Dalhousie Student Union Building early Friday afternoon waving large Palestinian flags and holding signs that read 'Stop the massacre' and 'Down with Zionism'. At the front of the procession was a young student wearing a keffiyeh around his neck, brandishing a megaphone and leading the crowd in a set of chants.
'Gaza Gaza, don't you cry. We will never let you die!'
'One, two, three, four – occupation no more. Five, six, seven, eight – we don't want a racist state. '
Two weeks after Israel launched an offensive on the Palestinians in Gaza, a coalition of Arab and Palestinian living in Halifax took to the streets in opposition. It was the second march they have organized since Israel launched air strikes on Gaza on December 27th.
“We are organizing this march today to break the silence that's going on around the world now,” said Issa Elhajabeb, a student from St. Mary's University. “You see a lot of civilians dying, a large percentage of them women and children and nobody is doing anything about it. We just want to let the people of Palestine know that we're here and we're doing something about it.”
In the crowd were university students, parents, grandparents and young children who had taken the afternoon off school, most of whom were chanting loudly in both English and Arabic to passer-byers on the street.
The protest took over the sidewalk along Spring Garden Road, stopping just long enough at Victoria Park to pick up more protesters before finally snaking its way to City Hall. Cars honked and pedestrians waived and nodded their support for those in the march.
For May Ebotoke, the protest held personal significance – she has family in the Gaza that cannot be reached and says she and her family have been glued to the television set for the last two weeks looking for updates. She held a sign that read, 'Canada why are you still silent?'. In her opinion, the Canadian government is not doing enough about the situation in Gaza.
“Most countries have taken a stand and Canada has been silent. This is our way to demonstrate that Canada should take a stand,” said May.
Elhajabeb also believes Canada should be more vocal about the situation in Gaza.
“Everything so far seems biased towards Israel even though we [the Palestinian people] are facing more of the casualties and more of the civilians are dying from our side,” says Elhajabeb. “ The Canadian government seems to be blindly supporting anything that the Jewish organizations ask of them. It's time for fairness.”
Earlier in the day, the Nova Scotia Voice of Women for Peace gathered outside the Spring Garden Public Library to voice their opposition to the war on Gaza. They held an hour long vigil and a moment of silence for the victims of the war.
More than 700 people have been killed and 3200 injured in Gaza already. The Friday protests were especially timely – earlier in the day the government of Israel announced it will continue its military offense on Hamas and the people of Gaza. It was an announcement that was made less than 24 hours after the United Nations called on Israel to withdraw from Gaza.
