Canada summons ambassador after Israeli army fires shots near 4 Canadian diplomats
By Canadian Press on May 21, 2025.
OTTAWA — Canada is summoning the Israeli ambassador to explain why Israel Defense Forces fired warning shots near a diplomatic tour in the West Bank on Wednesday.
Prime Minister Mark Carney called the situation “totally unacceptable” and said Canada expects an explanation of what happened.
“It’s some of many things that are totally unacceptable that’s going on in the region,” Carney said at a press conference on Parliament Hill Wednesday.
The Israeli military said Wednesday it “regrets the inconvenience caused” by warning shots it fired as diplomats toured the city of Jenin.
Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand confirmed on social media that four Canadians were part of the delegation touring Jenin. She added that she is “relieved” that all of them are safe.
The minister said she expects a full investigation and accountability.
“I have asked my officials to summon Israel’s Ambassador to convey Canada’s serious concerns,” Anand posted on X.
A video of the incident circulating online shows members of the tour group speaking to cameras near a large yellow gate. Gunshots can be heard as the group hurries away from the gate and goes around a street corner. In one video, two soldiers can be seen pointing guns in the direction of the group.
In its statement, the IDF said the tour group “deviated” from its approved route and soldiers fired warning shots to get the group to move away from an area it was not permitted to visit. The IDF says no one was injured in the incident.
Jean-Noël Barrot, France’s foreign minister, said in a social media post the situation is unacceptable and Israel’s ambassador to France has been summoned to explain it.
Italian Foreign Affairs Minister Antonio Tajani said he is also calling on the Israeli ambassador in Italy to explain the incident.
The IDF said it launched an inquiry into what happened and will speak with the affected diplomats to update them on the findings.
Former Canadian diplomat Colin Robertson said that when diplomats go to observe a combat area, their safety is not guaranteed.
“Things happen which certainly are not probably intentional on the part of the Israeli government, but these things have happened in the past. We’ve had Canadian observers killed, for example, when we were doing peace monitoring in Vietnam and in other situations,” he said.
Robertson said that while these are “serious incidents,” he attributes Wednesday’s incident to the “warlike” conditions in the West Bank.
In a joint statement issued earlier this week, Prime Minister Mark Carney, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron threatened to impose “targeted sanctions” on Israel in response to its renewed military offensive in Gaza and the “wholly inadequate” amount of food aid allowed into the enclave.
The letter also stated the leaders’ opposition to “any attempt” to expand Israeli settlement in the West Bank.
On Tuesday, the U.K. issued sanctions against what it said were three individuals, two “illegal settler outposts” and two organizations “supporting violence against Palestinian communities” in the West Bank.
While Britain also paused negotiations with Israel on a new trade deal, goods continue to flow between the two countries.
Robertson said he expects to see Canada issuing more declarations alongside European allies in the future.
Carney has said Canada needs to stand on its own, now that relations with the U.S. have soured over President Donald Trump’s tariffs and calls for Canada’s annexation.
Canada has sanctioned people and individuals for extremist settler violence against Palestinians in the West Bank in the past. The most recent round of sanctions was announced in September of last year.
Trump was asked Wednesday if he planned to speak with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about Israeli military operations in Gaza and mounting international pressure for a ceasefire. The president did not respond to the question.
Robertson said he’d be surprised if the U.S. was not aware in advance that the joint statement from Canada, the U.K. and France was going to be released.
“Much of foreign policy, particularly with the United States, is conducted on the premise of ‘no surprises,’ and that’s what you do with your allies. You let them know what you’re doing,” he said.
“I think you’re going to see more (of) Canada taking a kind of strategically pragmatic approach to foreign policy and no longer moving completely in tandem with what has been our closest ally and partner in the United States.”
In a social media post late Monday evening, Netanyahu accused the leaders of Canada, France and the U.K. of “offering a huge prize for the genocidal attack on Israel on October 7 while inviting more such atrocities.”
Hamas, which is listed as a terrorist entity in Canada, welcomed the letter in an online statement Tuesday, calling it “a significant step in the right direction.”
— With files from Kelly Geraldine Malone in Washington
This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 21, 2025.
David Baxter, The Canadian Press
34-33
” . . . the tour group “deviated” from its approved route . . . ”
They were in a warzone, with active missions ongoing so what in hell were they doing there in the first place? They are told to stay in a designated area!
These terrorists do not follow international rules of war under the Geneva Convention, and have broken almost everyone of those laws and are have been caught acting as journalists, emergency responders, dressing in IDF uniforms, and they would have no issues taken out Canadian diplomats and making it look the IDF did so!
If you go into a war were military operations are active, you better obey the rules and not wave your flag saying, ‘ I am a Canadian diplomat ‘ . . . are they stupid?
The Canadian government, with its cozy relationship with Aga Khan and his Muslim buddies who dumped billions into Canada so we have to now accept everything the terrorists do and attack our long time allies!
Israel is in an existential war . . . that means they are fighting for their right to exist on their own lands which they are Indigenous to and recognized as such by world Indigenous leaders who have an embassy in Jerusalem now to support that!
Yet our government decides to support Hamas and Hezbollah, who have stolen and diverted billions of dollars from the international community in the last 20 years to build a massive subterranean city with hundreds of miles of tunnels to destroy Israel, after Israel gave up Gaza, 20 years ago, in an effort to bring peace.
Shame on the Liberal government who allows our Canadain flag to be burned by Hamas funded protesters on our Canadian streets and campuses, and allows them to scream death to Canada, we are Hamas!
France and England are all but lost to the radical Muslims who were commanded by Imams in the Middle East it spread throughout Europe and grown in numbers and take the countries from the Infidels! That was 20 years ago . . . no look at London and Paris and the Canadian government are headed down the same path!
Hamas has admitted they inflated the death tolls and the 70% of the dead were males of combat age! The continue with only one mission . . . the death of all Jews and then all of us Western Infidels! First the Little Satan, Israel, then the Big Satan, the West!
Hamas hides behind civilians and surrounds themselves with women and children while taking up positions in Mosques, schools, playgrounds and even hospitals where they have built bases underneath . . . all breaking international law. The constantly murder women and children every chance the Palestinian militants have, and get paid under the pay to slay policy where in Canada, we could live easily on the monthly payments they receive for killing innocent civilians.
Their curriculum books in school from the beginning indoctrinate Palestinian children to hate Jews and that they are on their land, a land that everyday archaelogists dig up more proof that the Jews were in the land long before there even was a religion of Islam, which began 600 years after Christ was crucified!
The slaughter and burning of babies, children and women on October 7th was never condemned and charges brought against the Palestinian terrorists who took part, or Hamas.
The taking of innocent hostages from Israel dragged to Gaza, beaten, tortured, hidden tunnels, raped, starved, and kept in cages has never been judged by the courts. They also refuse to abide by international law by allowing the Red Cross to visit the hostages . . . taking hostages is also a war crime!
The terrorists instead with their major propaganda machine spread lies, paid for by Qatar, Iran and the terrorist groups themselves.
The Liberals should be ashamed and one day they will beg of mercy before God on Judgement Day!
I will Bless those who Bless you (Israel) and Curse those who Curse you!
And . .. You had no reason to be in a war zone! None!
I forgot . . . the Liberals also support facism, since many of these Hamas terrorists had Hitler’s manifesto book, Mein Kampf in their possession or in their hideouts!
” . . . Nazi Himmler in a January 1944 speech called Islam “a practical and attractive religion for soldiers,” with its promise of paradise and beautiful women for brave martyrs after their death. “This is the kind of language a soldier understands,” Himmler gushed. . . . Germany had been friends with Islam, Himmler declared, not just for pragmatic reasons but out of conviction. God — “you say Allah, it is the same” — had sent the Führer, who would first free Europe and then the entire world of the Jews. . . .”
But our Canadian government ignores the fact it has been the Palestinians attacking the Jews, not the Israeli’s attacking the Palestinians.
Makes you wonder who the Liberals really are . . . facists?