The Al-Quds Day rally, organized by the Al-Quds Committee in collaboration with the Palestinian Youth Movement, took place in Toronto on March 14, 2026.
Somar Abuaziza, President of the York Federation of Students and a Palestinian Movement organizer, spoke at the Al-Quds Day rally. Here is her speech:
Master of ceremonies:
Our next speaker, sister Somar Abuaziza. Somar Abuaziza is a Palestinian born and raised in Jenin, West Bank, and Palestine. Sumar is an active organizer with the Palestinian Movement, Toronto Chapter, and is a passionate about community organizing, joint struggle work towards the liberation of Palestine. Please join me in welcoming sister Somar with a warm round of applause.
Somar Abuaziza:
Free, free Palestine! Free, free, free Palestine! Up, up with liberation! Up, up with liberation! Down, down with occupation! Down, down with occupation! Down, down with occupation! Free, free Palestine! Free, free Palestine! Free, free Palestine! Free, free Palestine!
Brothers, sisters, comrades, my name is Somar and I’m an organizer with the Palestinian Youth Movement. But most importantly, I am a proud Palestinian born and raised in Jenin in the occupied West Bank.
Look around you. Look at the people standing here, side by side, filling the streets with unwavering power. This, this is what community looks like. This is what steadfastness looks like. This is what sumud [steadfastness] looks like. Every chant we raise, every flag we wave, every step we take is a part of a legacy far greater than ourselves.
Today, we stand shoulder to shoulder, thousands strong, filling the streets with our power and our truth. We are here to say what cannot be silenced. We are Palestinians and we will never surrender.
We are the descendants of generations who have walked through Nakba and siege, through massacres and blockades, but we are also the children of resistance, of mothers who have keys to homes they were forced to leave but never gave up, of fathers who whisper to us at night, one day we will return, and we will return.
From Gaza to Haifa, from Nazareth to Jaffa, from the camps in exile to the hills of al-Quds, Palestine is our home. It has always been our home. And no occupation, no apartheid wall, no colonial power will take that from us.
Every step we take today is a part of a much larger story. A story of people who refused to disappear, who have resisted the might of the most brutal colonization and who to this very moment are standing firm against one of the most violent occupation the world has ever seen.
At the center of this resistance is the sumud [steadfastness] of our people. And nowhere is that more clear today than it is in Gaza, in Jenin, in Tulkarem. Gaza, the beating heart of Palestinian resistance, where our people face bombs, the siege, the starvation, and still they stand. They have turned rubble into fortresses, grief into resilience, and death into a legacy of struggle that will never be erased. Gaza is not just surviving. Gaza is fighting. Gaza is inspiring.
But Gaza is not alone in this fight. Jenin is fighting. Tulkarem is resisting. All of Palestine have been resisting for over 78 years. And right now, as we gather here, Jenin’s refugee camp is under siege. The sound of gunfire, the roars of bulldozers, the cries of our youth facing tanks with nothing but stone and steadfastness. This is Jenin.
Jenin is once again holding the line, reminding us all that Palestinians do not run. Palestinians resist. They destroy homes and Jenin rebuilds it. They send their soldiers into the alleyways, but Jenin’s people do not bow. They face them head on, as they have always done, with their backs against the walls and their hearts full of courage.
And look at Tulkarem, where the occupation storms homes and streets in the dead of night, thinking they can break the will of our people. But the youth of Tulkarem, like the youth of Gaza and Jenin, stand in the face of tanks, snipers, and occupation. They stand because they know the truth. Freedom is worth every sacrifice.
Tulkarem, like Jenin, like Gaza, is writing a new chapter in the history of Palestinian resistance. Their streets are soaked with sacrifice, but their voices are louder than ever. Their defiance tells the occupiers, you will never defeat us.
To our martyrs in Jenin, in Tulkarem, in Gaza, we carry you with us. Every martyr is a torch lighting the way to our liberation.
To the resistance fighters, Holding the line in every alley, in every refugee camp, in every corner of our homeland, we salute you. The resistance is the heartbeat of every Palestinian who refuses to disappear. It is the fighters who stand with rifles in the streets to confront the most violent militias.
It is the youth who set up barricades in refugee camps, facing armed vehicles with a stone. Resistance is also the farmers reclaiming stolen land, the medics who race through gunfires to save lives, the students who organize under the shadows of occupation. It is the spirit that fuels the youth in Balata and Nur al-Shams who defend their camps with nothing but their courage.
The resistance is the decision to stand tall when the world is going to shut us down in barriers. Our resistance is built on sacrifice, but also on hope, on the belief that no occupation lasts forever.
Let us be clear today that resilience in Gaza, Jenin and Tulkarem is not an accident. It is the result of 78 years of steadfastness, 78 years of sumud [steadfastness], a people who refuse to be uprooted, a people whose love for their lands outweighs any fear.
The world may try to normalize this occupation. The media may try to hide our wounds. But Jenin, Tulkarem, Gaza, and Palestine as a whole, screams the truth to the world, that the Palestinian people will never be conquered, that every bullet fired at us strengthens our resolve, that every act of brutality only fuels our resistance.
To the occupiers who think time is on their hands, hear us loud and clear. The sumud [steadfastness] of our people, the strength of our resistance is eternal. For every martyr, a thousand will rise. For every olive tree uprooted, a hundred will bloom. For every home demolished, an entire generation will rebuild it.
Brothers and sisters, we’re standing in Tkaronto [Toronto] today, but our hearts are in the alleyways of Jenin, beneath the rubbles in Gaza, and in the streets of Tulkarem. Our voices are shaking the walls that cage our people. We are their echo. We are their continuation.
And so, we say, from Gaza to Jenin, from Tulkarem to every refugee camp in the diaspora, from the river to the sea, we will not stop. We will resist and we will return until every refugee returns to their home, until every prisoner is free, until every checkpoint and every apartheid wall is dismantled, until Palestine is liberated fully, completely, and forever.
We are the people of Jaffa and Haifa, of Nablus and Jerusalem, of Ramleh and Gaza. We are the children of resistance, the children of exile, the voices of camp, the heartbeat of the people that refuse to die. We promise, we are coming home. We are coming to the olive trees they try to steal, to the sea they try to blockade, to the mosques and churches they try to destroy. We are coming back to the land that calls our names. In every olive tree, in every rock, in every drop of blood, in every murder, in every cry, we are coming home.
No matter how long it takes, if it’s not us, it is our future generation. From every corner of this earth, from every refugee camp, from every street we march on today, we, as the collective, are building the road to liberation with our voices, with our bodies, and with our unbreakable will.
And on that day, when we finally return, we will walk the streets of Palestine free. We will stand under the sun of our liberated homeland. So, raise your flags, raise your signs, raise your voices, for Jenin, for Gaza, for Tulkarem, for Nablus, for Palestine as a whole. Free, free Palestine! Free, free Palestine! Free, free Palestine!
We are also living through a moment where the violence of empire is expanding across our region. From Palestine to Lebanon, from Gaza to Iran, we see the same forces of imperialism and colonialism trying to demolish our people, using bombs on our lands, imposing sanctions and attempting to erase the future of our people.
Today in Lebanon, more than 750,000 people have been displaced, families forced from their homes, entire communities uprooted by bombardment and instability. These are mothers, children, and elders. People who should be living in safety, not fleeing for their lives. And this is not an isolated tragedy. It is part of the same system that has treated our region as a battlefield for purging powers, a place where borders and manipulation, governments that are attempting to destabilize our governments, and ordering ordinary people made to pay the price for imperial ambitions.
But despite all of this, our region has always had a compass, and that compass is Palestine. Al-Quds remains the moral centre of the struggle, our freedom in our vision, because Palestine has always shown us something powerful, that no matter how powerful an imperial behaves itself to be, the resistance of our people fighting for their land, their dignity, and their liberation cannot be erased.
When we stand for Palestine, we are standing against imperialism everywhere. When we state free Palestine, we are affirming our right of our people from Lebanon to Iran and across the entire region to live free from war, occupation, displacement, and colonial domination. And that is why Palestine will always remain the compass guiding our struggle for liberation.
The Zionist entity actively tries to demolish the will of Palestinians in Gaza and in the West Bank and in Lebanon and in Iran, but we will never allow it. It is our duty and our responsibility to rebuild Gaza, to rebuild the West Bank, to rebuild Palestine, to rebuild our homes and countries who have been fighting against Zionism, colonialism, and imperialism for generations.
As a call to action to all of us, we the power, we are the power, the community here is the way that we can liberate our homeland. Start organizing with your people, find your riding groups, get on the streets and make your voices loud and clear. We need to collectively demand an arms embargo. These companies that are funded by the Canadian government are complicit in the killing of our people back home, and it is our responsibility to echo the voices of our people back home in fighting for the liberation of Palestine.
There are currently people going around with donation boxes. If you are able to, donate so we can rebuild Gaza. Donate so we can rebuild Palestine as a collective and free our homeland. Thank you. Free, free Palestine! Free, free, free Palestine! Free, free Palestine! Free, free, free Palestine!