Grapevine

In shadow of Israel’s war on Gaza, Palestinian diaspora fights to be heard

Montreal, Canada – Israa Alsaafin’s grief was piling up.

She was already grappling with the loss of her brother, Ahmed, who was killed in an Israeli attack as he fled his home in northern Gaza in October 2023, just days into Israel's war on the Palestinian territory.

And she had spent months trying to get her parents and relatives from Gaza to Canada, a process stymied by strict visa requirements. Ultimately, she was forced to spend thousands of dollars just to get them to relative safety in neighbouring Egypt.

But then an incident about two months ago brought the fear of anti-Palestinian violence right to her door in Ottawa, the Canadian capital.

Alsaafin stepped outside to discover that a sign she had placed on her front lawn, with the phrase “We Stand with Palestine”, had been vandalised with epithets disparaging Palestinian identity.