VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – The conflict in the Middle East has prompted people to hit the streets of Vancouver.
   
Thomas Davies with Mobilization Against War and Occupation  took his anger to the front of the Vancouver Public Library Saturday afternoon. He is calling on the Canadian government to do something about the lastest Israeli attacks on Gaza. 
    
“We want this violence and this massacre to stop now. We want the lives and the rights of Palestinians to be respected and we think the only way we can do that is by people coming to the streets and people uniting to denounce what’s going on.”

He stresses that Gaza is already a region under siege.

“Families just like any family here in Vancouver and Canada don’t have electricity, don’t have running water, are constantly under attack, can’t live stably, and have their rights violated,” he points out.

Dozens of people have died since the siege started on Wednesday.

Ten people were killed in strikes on Saturday alone. The dead included eight militants. Dozens more are injured.
   
Israel’s military carried out nearly 200 airstrikes on Saturday against more than 800 targets in Gaza.
   
It also reports its “Iron Dome” rocket-defence system shot down a rocket heading for a target in Tel Aviv, Israel’s bustling commercial and cultural capital.

Local journalist agrees Canadian government should be critical about attacks

Now is not the time to keep our mouths shut about what goes on in the Middle East.

That’s how a local journalist feels, as the casualty count builds in the Gaza Strip and Israel.

Deborah Campbell, who wrote This Heated Place and has reported from the region, believes the Canadian government should take a stand against Israel’s military operations.

“We’ve already seen children killed in the last few days and they have nothing to do with this. If it’s just for political posturing so that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu can win the election in January, it’s not only sad, it’s tragic,” she  insists.

“I think Canadians should be concerned that our government is absolutely uncritical of any kind of Israeli military operations, even if they are killing civilians.”

She says this conflict has the shades of the violence that occurred four years ago, when more than one thousand Palestinians, including hundreds of women and children, were killed during a three-week clash that began right after Christmas.