Palestinians salvage their belongings after an Israeli strike in Rafah, Gaza Strip, on Dec. 13.Hatem Ali/The Associated Press
Canada must halt arms shipments to Israel to guard against the risk the weapons are being used to commit serious violations of international humanitarian law, an arms control group says.
Israel is facing international criticism for the way it is conducting air strikes in Gaza, and Waterloo, Ont.-based Project Ploughshares says Canada bears some responsibility because every F-35 aircraft used in those air strikes includes Canadian-made parts.
U.S. President Joe Biden said this week that Israel was losing international support because of its “indiscriminate” bombing of civilians in Gaza in its war against Hamas militants.
Project Ploughshares is urging Ottawa to halt all arms sales to Israel, saying that Canadian firms exported more than $21-million in defence equipment to Israeli customers in 2022, the latest year on record.
The group also said that human-rights organization Amnesty International has warned there is “damning evidence of war crimes” in Israel’s bombing campaign.
And last month, Human Rights Watch identified Canada as an ally of Israel that “should suspend military assistance and arms sales to Israel so long as its forces commit widespread, serious abuses amounting to war crimes against Palestinian civilians with impunity.”
Israel’s assault on Gaza has killed at least 18,205 Palestinians and wounded almost 50,000, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza.
“The gravity of this situation calls for immediate action to ensure Canada is meeting its domestic and international obligations to mitigate the risk of contributing to … violations of international humanitarian law, including possible war crimes, in Gaza,” says a report by Ploughshares researcher Kelsey Gallagher.
He cited air and artillery strikes on hospitals, apartment complexes, refugee camps and critical civilian infrastructure.
“Given the substantial risk that Canadian military goods could contribute to such abuses in Gaza, Canada must immediately halt all transfers of weapons to Israel.”
Israel’s embassy in Ottawa rejected Mr. Biden’s allegation that its military is indiscriminately bombing civilians. In a statement provided to The Globe and Mail, it said “Israel is operating against Hamas and other terrorist groups in Gaza, not against the civilian population … directing its attacks only at military objectives.” The statement added that “Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists, embedded inside the civilian population, which they use as human shields, continue to attack Israel, hold hostages, and are committing war crimes and crimes against humanity.”
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Hamas has been designated a terrorist group by Canada and the United States. It started the war by killing more than 1,200 Israelis and taking hundreds of people hostage in an Oct. 7 attack.
Canada doesn’t normally release many details on defence exports to Israel or other countries. Since 2015, however, the largest annual categories of shipments fall into three categories: bombs, torpedoes, missiles and other explosive devices; aircraft, drones, aero engines, aircraft equipment for military use and electronic equipment; spacecraft and components.
A 2020-2021 study by the House of Commons foreign affairs committee obtained records that shed some light on the goods Canadian firms were seeking permission to export to Israel, including transport vehicles, circuit boards for Israel’s fleet of F-15 and V-22 aircraft and components for radios.
The Canadian-made components that go into each F-35 don’t show up in Ottawa’s records of military goods exports because they are shipped to the United States, where the aircraft’s manufacturer, Lockheed Martin, is based, and Global Affairs Canada does not publish the full value of annual military exports to the U.S.
Project Ploughshares said Canada is obliged as a signatory to the international Arms Trade Treaty to avoid authorizing arms transfers when there is a substantial risk they could be used in breaches of international humanitarian law.
In early November, Lieutenant-General Herzi Halevi, the Israel Defence Forces Chief of Staff, said that F-35Is – the F-35 variant used by Israel – were contributing to the bombing campaign and “destroying Hamas’s infrastructure in Gaza.” The planes have reportedly been equipped with 907-kilogram GBU-31 JDAM bombs.
That same month, Dutch civil-society organizations, including Oxfam Novib, PAX and the Rights Forum, launched a legal challenge against the Netherlands for supplying F-35 components to Israel. It followed leaked media reports that Dutch officials were concerned the components could be used to commit serious international humanitarian law violations.
Project Ploughshares is also calling on Ottawa to begin regulating all arms transfers to the United States. Canada has allowed a sort of free trade in weapons shipments to the U.S. for decades, and the vast majority of what the arms control group estimates is worth more than $1-billion in annual exports to the U.S. is unregulated.
Since the late 1990s, at least 110 Canadian-based suppliers have been awarded contracts valued in excess of $3.8-billion for the F-35 program, Project Ploughshares said. It pointed to a 2018 study commissioned by Lockheed Martin that said there are US$2.3-million worth of Canadian components in every F-35 jet.
While the Canadian content may vary in different versions of the jet, in January then-defence-minister Anita Anand said every F-35 produced will include Canadian parts, from landing gear components to engine parts to software, making the aircraft a “testament to Canada’s world-class aerospace and defence industry.”
Project Ploughshares said Canadian suppliers have also manufactured segments of the F-35′s airframe and a host of internal components, including engine monitoring sensors, printed circuit boards, inserts on the weapons bay door and the horizontal tail of the aircraft.
With files from Reuters