Canada is complicit!
“[Canada] cannot drop aid with one hand and deliver arms with the other. Canada must choose a side: justice and international law or complicity in atrocities.” – Kairos Canada
Canada’s complicity
Canadian Friends of Sabeel (CFOS) strongly supports the newly released report from the Arms Embargo Now campaign, which provides indisputable evidence that Canada has continued to export weapons and military components to Israel throughout its ongoing genocide on Gaza in spite of government claims to the contrary.
This report confirms that Canada is complicit in the devastation unfolding in Gaza. Canadian-made components are being used in F-35 fighter jets, drones, and bombs that are killing innocent children, women, and men, leveling infrastructure, and violating international law. These exports stand in clear violation of Canada’s obligations under international law and are a betrayal of Canadian values of peace with justice.
A few specifics:
47 military shipments from 21 Canadian companies in 7 Canadian cities from October 2023 to January 2025;
each Lockheed Martin F-35 jet bombing Gaza contains US$2.3 million of Canadian parts;
421,070 bullets were exported to Israel from Canada since the Gaza assault began, including one shipment in April 2025 alone containing 175,000 bullets.
CFOS joins others in calling for an immediate and total arms embargo on Israel. We encourage our supporters to read the full report here and send an urgent message to their Member of Parliament here.
Churches advocate together
An ecumenical letter dated July 28 to Prime Minister Mark Carney and Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand urges that the Government of Canada work to:
Secure an immediate and permanent ceasefire;
Ensure food, water, fuel, and humanitarian aid are delivered unhindered;
Achieve the release of all captives, both Israeli and Palestinian;
Impose a comprehensive, two-way arms embargo on Israel, including closing loopholes such as exports via the US;
End Israel’s military occupation and annexation of Palestine, paving the way for a just peace.
The letter is signed by the leaders of Kairos Canada, Caritas Canada, the Anglican Church of Canada, Canadian Friends of Sabeel, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada, Mennonite Church Canada Palestine-Israel Network, the Presbyterian Church in Canada, and the United Church of Canada. The letter reiterates the same demands the churches sent to Prime Minister Trudeau over a year ago. Read the entire letter here.
To support the letter and its objectives, thousands of Canadians of faith have joined the Kairos Postcards for Gaza campaign led by CFOS, which repeats these demands. Please support this campaign by sending your own message via the simple tool provided here. Please also encourage family members, friends, and neighbours to send this clear and straightforward message to the Prime Minister.
Canada will recognize the State of Palestine
On July 30, Prime Minister Carney announced that in September Canada will issue a conditional recognition of a Palestinian state. The response of the United Church of Canada, though welcoming the declaration, reiterates the measures outlined in the ecumenical letter of July 28, which the Canadian government has NOT enacted. “Why does Canada fail to address the immediate priority to end the Israeli government’s genocide against Palestinians in Gaza and ethnic cleansing in the West Bank and East Jerusalem?” See more here.
Humanitarian agencies advocate together
As highlighted by Mennonite Central Committee and many others, in early July over 200 NGOs worldwide joined in demanding an end to the Israeli genocidal strategy that channels all food aid in Gaza to four sites controlled by the Israeli military. There, in less than four weeks, “more than 500 Palestinians have been killed and almost 4,000 injured just trying to access or distribute food. Israeli forces and armed groups … routinely open fire on desperate civilians risking everything just to survive.” Details of the campaign are here.
On August 13, more than 100 international aid organizations issued a joint statement protesting the increasingly tightened registration process Israel has imposed on them, preventing them from distributing food, water, medicine, and other desperately needed supplies in Gaza, as well as ongoing aid in the West Bank. The NGOs are being asked to provide detailed information about Palestinian staff, donors, and other personnel—all of which represent what they claim is the “weaponization of aid.” Some of these NGOs are CFOS partners. Read more here and here.
A new book is coming!
Orbis Books will launch a new book in September entitled, The Cross and the Olive Tree, by John Munayer, Samuel Munayer, and Sabeel co-founder Naim Ateek. The subtitle is, Cultivating Palestinian Theology Amid Gaza. You can pre-order your copy here. Brothers John and Samuel Munayer are both Palestinian Christian theologians. John lectures at Bethlehem Bible College and edits the Journal of Palestinian Christianity. Samuel has studied under Ilan Pappe at Exeter University in England and published many articles about Palestinian liberation theology. More on the work of the Munayer brothers here. One of the chapters in the book is written by Vancouver-based Shadia Qubti, a Palestinian “lived theologian” and friend of CFOS.
Weekly events hosted by Sabeel Jerusalem
Sabeel conducts a weekly English online worship service on Thursdays at 11:00 AM EDT. The services are a time to meet together to discuss how weekly scripture readings apply to life today, especially in Palestine and Israel, and to pray for the specific needs of this region through the Sabeel Wave of Prayer. Register here to participate.
Sabeel’s weekly topical Wave of Prayer email draws on specific experiences from the preceding week; you can find each week’s prayer here.
Sabeel’s Kumi Now program hosts weekly online sessions every Tuesday via livestream. Each week, Kumi Now highlights a different organization working to raise awareness about specific issues in Palestine and Israel, provides information about a specific issue of injustice through the stories of those affected, and promotes a creative nonviolent advocacy action. Register to participate here. After streaming live, all sessions are posted on the Kumi Now YouTube channel. To subscribe, search Kumi Now on YouTube and click Subscribe. Watch the most recent Kumi Now, “Legalizing Dispossession in East Jerusalem,” here.