Protesters marched from the Johnson Street Bridge to Lockheed Martin’s administrative offices in Esquimalt on Saturday morning calling for a stop to Canadian arms exports to Israel amid the war in Gaza.
At 11 a.m., around 100 people, many carrying Palestinian flags, arrived at the Lockheed Martin administrative offices near CFB Esquimalt after making their way down Esquimalt Road with a police escort.
Protest organizer Tara Ehrcke said the protest was one of 15 co-ordinated demonstrations across Canada on Saturday calling for an arms embargo on Israel over its war in Gaza.
“It’s becoming increasingly clear that there are potential war crimes going on. The indiscriminate killing of women and children continues to take place and that we shouldn’t be complicit with that,” she said.
Israel’s 13-month war in Gaza has killed more than 43,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to Gaza health officials who do not distinguish between civilians and combatants.
The war began after Palestinian militants stormed into Israel from Gaza on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people — mostly civilians — and abducting 250 others.
Weekly protests calling for an end to the war in Gaza and for Canada to end its arms sales to Israel have occurred in downtown Victoria and at the B.C. legislature lawn for the past year.
While the federal government has suspended a small number of weapon export permits with Israel following pressure from the federal New Democratic Party — a change in policy which Ehrcke attributed partly to ongoing pro-Palestinian demonstrations across the country — there are still numerous existing permits and a “loophole” through U.S.-Canada trade that is allowing for Canadian-made weapons and military parts to reach Israel, she said.
— With a file from the Associated Press
