May 15 marked Nakba Day
“It’s about the children. Pretty much every human being on earth loves or has loved a child. My challenge for people is to see the children they love in the children of Gaza.” – Dr. Sarah Lalonde
Nakba Day
May 15 marked Nakba Day, the annual date commemorating al-Nakba, or “the catastrophe,” in Palestinian experience. Normally, Nakba refers to the displacement of 750,000 Palestinians and the destruction of some 530 Palestinian villages and towns by Israel between 1947 and 1949. It began prior to and continued after the founding of the State of Israel in May 1948.
Many Palestinians argue that the Nakba continues to the present with Israel’s ongoing genocide, ethnic cleansing and apartheid system imposed on Palestinians.
On our website, you can view a CFOS-produced photo exhibit depicting the story of the Nakba or read a memoir by a CFOS colleague of her family’s personal experience of the Nakba.
Call for Repentance Conference
Join Palestinian leaders and prominent Canadian activists from May 28 to 30, 2025, at Saint Paul University in Ottawa for a crucial conference, entitled “Palestine, Settler Colonialism, and Western Churches.” Together, we will listen, share, and strategize on how to help engage more Canadians to end the ongoing genocide in Palestine. This is a critical opportunity to deepen understanding of Palestine’s brutal reality, confront settler colonialism, and discern how we might better mobilize Canadian religious communities and civil society to take action.
CFOS will be presenting a workshop entitled, "Taking Action: Lessons & Guidance from an Indigenous Ally Toolkit." Participants will develop connections, build solidarity, and issue a powerful, unified call to action. Join us in forging an impact-driven movement dedicated to defending human rights and ending the genocide.
More information on this important event is available here.
Arms Embargo Now
Arms Embargo Now is hosting a special webinar on Sunday, May 18 at 1 pm Central Time to provide an update on Canada's arms trade with Israel and why an arms embargo is a key way to sanction Israel and to help end the genocide. CFOS is a signatory to the Arms Embargo Now campaign. Learn more and register for the webinar here.
Canadian physician serves in Gaza
Dr. Sarah Lalonde is a Canadian physician based in Montreal who worked this past winter at the European Gaza Hospital in southern Gaza. She went to Gaza with Glia, the medical relief organization founded by Dr Tarek Loubani of London, Ontario. Meet her in a gripping article in the on-line Anglican Journal of the Anglican Church in Canada.
Dr. Lalonde describes the struggle to provide basic medical services amid shortages of equipment and medication, including basic analgesics and anesthetics, alongside colleagues who had been displaced many times and lived in tents without electricity or running water. At the hospital they treated patients suffering from trauma, from untreated medical conditions, issues related to hygiene, and from injuries due to bombs, snipers, and unexploded ordinances. “The vast majority of people that we saw shot by snipers, for example, were children.” She urges,“My challenge for people is to see the children they love in the children of Gaza.”
Dr. Lalonde describes being inspired by our CFOS What You Can Do toolkit.
Analysis from Jonathan Kuttab of FOSNA
While most media attention focuses on Gaza, Israel’s attacks on the West Bank have increased. See Jonathan Kuttab’s analysis of the situation in the West Bank, presented in a FOSNA webinar on April 16, following his most recent visit there. He spoke about increased land confiscation, settlement expansion, house demolitions, extrajudicial killings, arbitrary detentions, displacement of some 40,000 people and blockades on the movement between Palestinian cities. He also observed among nearly all Jewish Israelis an “utter sense of impunity” and complete “dehumanization of Palestinians”—yet combined with rage, fear, and deep “uncertainty about the future.” According to Kuttab, this state of mind explains the ongoing genocidal behaviour which he describes in detail. The 53-minute presentation, also available on YouTube, is full of alert observation and astute analysis.
Israel recently announced its plan to control distribution of food aid to Gazans, with absolute decision-making as to who receives it. Private US security firms will implement the distribution to families vetted and directed by Israel. In a blog post, Jonathan Kuttab calls the plan an exact duplicate of “the permit regime Israel already operates in the West Bank to recruit collaborators, subjugate the population, and make average Palestinians totally dependent on Israel and its security agencies for the most basic of human needs.” He ends, “For each of us, the question remains, a question we need to answer: ‘Will we allow this to happen?’”
Remembering Shireen Abu Akleh
May 11 was the anniversary of the assassination of Shireen Abu Akleh, the most distinguished of Palestinian journalists, in 2022. A recently released investigative documentary “Who Killed Shireen,” available for viewing here, pinpoints Israeli accountability for her murder. Shireen worked for 25 years for Al Jazeera and is widely commemorated throughout Palestine. Shireen's niece, Lareen Abu Akleh, worked at Sabeel as part of the hosting team at the time of the Solidarity Pilgrimage in November 2024.
Honours for another Palestinian leader
Last week, Dr. Suhaila Tarazi, the heroic director of al-Ahli Hospital in northern Gaza, was awarded an honourary Doctorate of Humane Letters from Virginia Theological Seminary of the US Episcopal Church (Anglican). You can view examples of her work and witness over many years on YouTube and elsewhere. The al-Ahli Hospital, which has been attacked multiple times since the genocide on Gaza began, is owned and operated by the Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem and its partners include the Anglican Church of Canada.
Reading for justice and peace
If you read just one book this season about the Middle East, you might choose One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This by Egyptian-Canadian novelist/essayist/journalist Omar el Akkad. In a concrete and succinct way he details the intentional evasion by the West of any moral grappling with and responsibility for the carnage taking place in Palestine. The book is published by Knopf. Read more about it here for example, where CBC calls it “a heartsick breakup letter with the West.”
For a list of other excellent books on Palestine and Israel, consult our recommended book list.