Al-Quds Day rally took place in Toronto on April 6, 2024. Four day earlier, Toronto4Palestine issued the following statement:
THIS SATURDAY, WE STAND UNITED AGAINST GENOCIDE IN GAZA! 🇵🇸
Historically a day of protest focused on the Zionist occupation of Jerusalem, Al Quds Day this year will take on a broader significance across occupied Palestine and the world, as our movement for liberation continues to agitate, mobilize and escalate in defence of Palestine and against the genocidal Zionist regime.
Every year on the last Friday of Ramadan, millions pour into the streets to proclaim Al Quds (Jerusalem) as the undivided and unceded capital of Palestine. Al Quds Day is a recommitment to the struggle for Palestinian liberation, and an affirmation of the significance of Palestine to Muslims, Arabs, and people of conscience the world over.
We call upon the masses of the world to join us in organizing actions and mobilizing in defence of Al Quds, Gaza and the Palestinian struggle for liberation and return. We’ll see you this Saturday in the streets!
The organizers of Al-Quds Day in Toronto are Al-Quds Committee Toronto, Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM) and Toronto4Palestine.
Here is the speech delivered by Muhammad, a speaker on behalf of the Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM), at Toronto Al-Quds Day rally:
As-salamu alaykum (peace be upon you). As unbearable and infuriating the conditions are it brings me joy and warmth to be amongst community and comrades here to commemorate Al-Quds Day in Toronto.
For decades the Palestine solidarity movement has bring has been growing here with people from all backgrounds and walks of life organizing to demand an end to Israeli occupation of Palestinian land and an end to Canadian complicity and Israeli war crimes.
In the last six months the hard work of previous generations paved the way for us to take these streets in an unprecedented show of sustained popular mobilization and resistance against Canadian complicity and Zionism.
We have sent a clear message to our so-called elected officials and to the Zionist Lobby that this movement for justice is stronger and more united than ever. We made our message clear that we will not give them peace until we see an end to this genocidal ethnic cleansing campaign, an end to this barbaric siege on Gaza and the liberation of all Palestinian land from the river to the sea. From the river to the sea Palestine will be free. From the river to the sea Palestine will be free.
Since October [2023] the Canadian state has sent over $28 million to the Zionist state in arms. Shame! By funding and providing Israel with weapons, cluster munitions and white phosphorous chemical weapons, Canada is directly implicated in the current genocide and famine in Gaza. This is why we continue to demand a real arms embargo on the Zionist entity, including all current and ongoing contracts with the Zionist state.
As you all know, during our Land Day March we faced an unprecedent level of State violence against our community. While this was definitely the biggest escalation our community has seen it is not an isolated incident. What happened on Saturday is a part of a pattern of escalating state violence and repression against the Palestine solidarity movement in so-called Canada.
The Toronto Police Service [TPS] like every other Police Service in so-called Canada are tools used by political and economic elites to maintain the status quo and advance the colonial and Imperial interests of the state. Shame. The TPS uses anti-Palestinian racism to stoke fear about our mobilizations and continue to inflate their budgets which is taking up the largest portion of the city budget. Shame!
The violence inflicted on us by the Toronto Police Service was no different than the violence inflicted on black indigenous or Tamil mobilizations on these same streets. We know that the RCMP recently convened Canadian Police Departments to direct them on how to suppress us. Shame!
We also know that the Toronto police has training exchange programs with the Israeli occupation forces, where they learn the tactics used to subjugate and brutalize our families in Palestine. Shame!
TPS, KKK [Ku Klux Klan],IOF [Israel Occupation Forces], you’re all the same. But what they do not know is that our people’s will to resist is unbending. They do not know that we will shake them off like fleas and continue to march, continue to disrupt and continue to demand an end to this genocide, an end to the occupation of Palestinian land and the liberation of all of our land and all of our people.
As Canada, the US and the UK states collaborate with Israel to keep the Arab and Muslim World under the boot of imperialism, the axis of resistance is more united and coordinated than ever. The people united will never be defeated. The people United will never be defeated. The people United will never be defeated.
The axis of resistance has the support of the masses of the world. Unlike Israel, Canada, the Us and other imperialist states who have been failing in their propaganda and they have been failing in their military occupations to quell resistance against Western imperialism and Zionism.
From Yemen to Lebanon from South Africa to Ireland from the streets of Amman and Cairo to right here in the streets of Toronto, the people stand with Palestine. Free, free Palestine. Free, free Palestine. We are a part of a global intifada, which is united and its resistance against Zionism against colonialism and against Western imperialism.
And while it might be disheartening to see the situation get worse and worse in Gaza, we want you all to know that this united resistance against Zionism and all of its forms is surely taking its toll on the Zionist entity.
The Zionist entity is in crisis they are more divided than ever. Its military occupations are failing and their fake image has been shattered. Just like the people of Vietnam and just like the people of Algeria, the people of Palestine will decolonize their land from Western imperialism.
Our people are brave and steadfast. We inherit the spirit of resistance against colonial occupation, against ethnic cleansing and against erasure.
From Gaza to Al-Quds, Allah Willing (إِنْ شَاءَ ٱللَّٰهُ) we will see the freedom and liberation of our lands from the river to the sea. From The river to the sea Palestine will be free.
The power of popular resistance can bring down empires. We must all continue to show up, to build momentum and we must make sure that we are making our message clear that we will not give up until our demands are met, until we see an end to this genocide, until we see a lifting of the siege on Gaza and until we see the liberation of all Palestinian land from the clutches of Zionist settler colonialism. Free, free Palestine. Free, free Palestine.
As the martyr Ghassan Kanafani [former senior operative of the Palestinian Front for the Liberation of Palestine – PFLP] once said, imperialism has laid its body over the world wherever you strike it, you damage it, and you serve the world revolution. The Palestinian cause is not a cause for Palestinians only, but a cause for every revolutionary wherever he is. It is the cause of the exploited and the oppressed masses in our era.
So let this Al-Quds day be a moment where we crystallize our resistance and mobilizations against Zionist terror and Canadian complicity. Let’s make sure that our numbers do not dwindle and our momentum does not slow down as we enter this summer, and as we have 1.4 million people in Rafah who are facing ethnic cleansing.
So let’s all say together and one voice and make all of Toronto hear us. Free, free Palestine. Free, free Palestine.