1)Canada condemns Israel over humanitarian crisis in Gaza

Courtesy Barrie360.com and Canadian Press

By Canadian Press Staff, July 24, 2025.

Prime Minister Mark Carney on Thursday accused the Israeli government of failing to prevent a rapidly deteriorating humanitarian crisis in Gaza and of violating international law by denying aid.

In a post on X, Carney said Israel’s control of aid distribution must be replaced by “comprehensive provision” of humanitarian assistance led by international organizations.

“Canada calls on all sides to negotiate an immediate ceasefire in good faith,” he said. 

“We reiterate our calls for Hamas to immediately release all the hostages, and for the Israeli government to respect the territorial integrity of the West Bank and Gaza.”

Israel’s parliament on Wednesday approved a symbolic motion to annex the West Bank. Annexation of the West Bank could make it impossible to create a viable Palestinian state alongside Israel, which is seen internationally as the only realistic way to resolve the conflict.

Carney said Canada supports a two-state solution, with Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand set to attend a UN conference next week in New York on the issue.

Anand said it is “inexcusable” that women and children in Gaza are without adequate access to food and water.

“The Israeli government must allow the uninhibited flow of humanitarian aid to reach Palestinian civilians, who are in urgent need,” she said on X.

Their comments came on the same day French President Emmanuel Macron announced his country would recognize Palestine as a state.

Macron said in a post on X that he would formalize the decision at the UN General Assembly in September. 

“The urgent thing today is that the war in Gaza stops and the civilian population is saved,” he wrote.

The mostly symbolic move puts added diplomatic pressure on Israel as the war and humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip rage. 

France is now the biggest western power to recognize Palestine, and the move could pave the way for other countries to do the same. More than 140 countries recognize a Palestinian state, including more than a dozen in Europe.

The Palestinians seek an independent state in the occupied West Bank, annexed east Jerusalem and Gaza, territories Israel occupied in the 1967 Mideast war. 

Canada was one of more than two dozen countries, including the United Kingdom, Japan and Australia, that issued a joint statement this week calling for an immediate end to the war in Gaza.

— With files from The Associated Press.

2) Canada joins 24 nations calling on Israel to end war in Gaza, aid restrictions

Courtesy Barrie360.com and Canadian Press

By David Baxter, July 21, 2025

Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand and 24 of her counterparts abroad have signed a joint statement saying “the war in Gaza must end now,” while calling on Israel to stop displacing Palestinians.

The signatories — who include the foreign ministers of France, Japan and the U.K., and the European Union commissioner for equality, preparedness and crisis management — called Israel’s aid distribution system “dangerous.”

The ministers also condemned Hamas for continuing to hold hostages captured from Israel in the Oct. 7, 2023 attack and called for their immediate release.

They said it’s “horrifying that over 800 Palestinians have been killed while seeking aid.”

That death toll is based on figures released by the UN human rights office and the Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza.

“The suffering of civilians in Gaza has reached new depths. The Israeli government’s aid delivery model is dangerous, fuels instability and deprives Gazans of human dignity. We condemn the drip feeding of aid and the inhumane killing of civilians, including children, seeking to meet their most basic needs of water and food,” the ministers wrote.

The ministers decry proposals by Israeli officials to concentrate Palestinians in Gaza into one city. 

“Permanent forced displacement is a violation of international humanitarian law,” the statement notes.

It also takes aim at the Israeli government’s proposed expansion of settlements in the Palestinian territories it occupies, particularly as it seeks to divide the West Bank from East Jerusalem.

This would “critically undermine the two-state solution,” the statement said, noting an increase in the building of settlements that Canada deems illegal, at a time when “settler violence against Palestinians has soared.”

Oren Marmorstein, spokesman for Israel’s foreign affairs ministry, said Israel rejects the joint statement, calling it “disconnected from reality” and saying it “sends the wrong message to Hamas.”

“The statement fails to focus the pressure on Hamas and fails to recognize Hamas’s role and responsibility for the situation. Hamas is the sole party responsible for the continuation of the war and the suffering on both sides,” Marmorstein wrote in a social media statement.

“At these sensitive moments in the ongoing negotiations, it is better to avoid statements of this kind.”

Marmorstein said that Hamas is solely to blame for the lack of movement on a ceasefire and on releasing the hostages. He accused Hamas of “deliberately” increasing tensions and civilian harm at humanitarian aid stations.

The ministers who signed the statement are calling on the Israeli government to lift all restrictions on aid delivery and to “enable the UN and humanitarian NGOs” to do their work safely and effectively. 

Most of the food supplies Israel has allowed into Gaza go to the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, an American contractor backed by Israel. Witnesses and health officials say that since the group’s operations began in late May, hundreds of Palestinians have been killed by Israeli army fire while trying to reach aid distribution sites.

Israel has blocked aid for three months before setting up GHF sites, effectively shutting down hundreds of sites that had been operated by international agencies across Gaza.

Israel says it had to take this step to prevent aid from reaching Hamas, which had been selling vital supplies and food to pay its fighters. But UN agencies say this was not happening to a large extent.

While the United States, Qatar and Egypt did not sign the letter, the ministers who did sign say they support the efforts of those three countries to negotiate a ceasefire.

In addition to the U.S., Germany was the only other G7 country that did not endorse the statement.

The signatories added they are prepared to take “further action to support an immediate ceasefire” and establish a political pathway to peace in the region.

— With files from The Associated Press.