The escalating conflict in Israel and the Gaza Strip will definitely worsen before any improvement is seen, Canada’s foreign affairs minister told CTV News Chief Political Correspondent Vassy Kapelos on Monday.
Speaking to CTV’s Power Play, Melanie Joly said that she has been in contact with her counterparts in Israel, the Gaza Strip and neighbouring countries searching for a way to de-escalate the volatile situation, which has already killed nearly 1,600 people(opens in a new tab) on both sides.
“We’ve received reports of one Canadian dead and also three missing, so that’s information I can provide you at this point,” Joly said. “And of course, my thoughts and my heart is with those who are affected by this multi-front terrorist attack against the Israeli people.”
Joly said that they are in contact with the families involved.
Hamas militants launched a surprise attack in Israel(opens in a new tab) on Saturday, striking numerous Israeli towns on the border with the Gaza Strip, as well as a music festival, killing hundreds in the process.
In the days since, Israel has responded by increasing its bombardment of the Gaza Strip and sealing it off from food, water, fuel and other supplies.
According to media reports and local authorities, around 900 people have been killed in Israel and more than 680 people have been killed in Gaza, with thousands wounded on both sides. Hamas and other militants in Gaza say they have taken more than 130 soldiers and civilians from inside Israel hostage.
JOLY SAYS SHE WON’T ‘SPECULATE ON THE INVOLVEMENT OF IRAN’
When asked about comments made Sunday by Bob Rae(opens in a new tab), Canada’s ambassador to the UN, who asserted that he believes Iran was involved in the Hamas attack in Israel, Joly said she would not “speculate on the involvement of Iran.
“At this point, I’m doing the diplomatic work along with many of my colleagues to make sure that there’s de-escalation and that the conflict doesn’t become broader within the region,” she said.
Although Canada is focused on de-escalation, it’s not going to be easy, Joly said.
“It will get worse before it gets better, we know that,” she said. “And that was clear also through my conversations with my Israeli counterpart.
“We believe in Israel’s right to defend itself against this multi-front terrorist attack by Hamas. It needs to do so, of course, according to international law. Hostages must be released. Civilians must be protected.”
ISRAEL ANNOUNCES ‘COMPLETE SIEGE’ OF GAZA
The death toll seen in the region over the last three days is the largest since Israel’s 1973 war with Egypt and Syria, also known as the Yom Kippur War.
The bloody incursion by Hamas over the weekend included gunmen opening fire at a music festival, with video posted on social media showing people fleeing in terror.
Bodies are still being found in Israel from the initial attack by Hamas, with rescue workers locating 100 bodies in a farming community near the border of the Gaza Strip on Monday.
Israeli airstrikes launched in retaliation have flattened some residential buildings already in the Gaza Strip, where 2.3 million people live. UNICEF estimates that children make up 47 per cent of the population in the Gaza Strip.
As Israel amasses tanks near openings in the fence around the Gaza Strip to prevent further incursions, the question is looming of whether or not a ground assault into Gaza might be next — something that hasn’t been seen since 2014.
On Monday, Israel announced a “complete siege” of Gaza, cutting off the already blockaded Gaza Strip from food, water, fuel, electricity and other supplies. Residents of the impoverished region, which has been called “an open-air prison” by Human Rights Watch(opens in a new tab), have been under a blockade since 2007, which restricts the movement of goods and people in and out of the region.
Israel and Egypt imposed the blockade after Hamas seized control of Gaza in 2007(opens in a new tab). Israel says the closure is needed to prevent Hamas, which does not recognize Israel’s right to exist, from building up its military capabilities.
“We have only started striking Hamas,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a nationally televised address Monday. “What we will do to our enemies in the coming days will reverberate with them for generations.”
Hamas announced on Monday that it would begin executing Israeli captives if Israel targeted any civilians in Gaza “without prior warning.”
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speaks at a rally in support of Israel, at the Soloway Jewish Community Centre in Ottawa, Oct. 9, 2023. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Justin Tang
CANADIAN OFFICIALS CONDEMN HAMAS ATTACK
At a solidarity gathering for Israel held in Ottawa Monday night, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau stated that Canada “unequivocally, and in the strongest possible terms condemns these terrorist attacks perpetrated by Hamas.”
Canada has designated Hamas as a terrorist group since 2002.
“The attacks this weekend were brutal,” Trudeau said. “We’ve heard stories of people who were there at the music festival for peace when gunmen started shooting. Images of parents shielding their children to protect them from rockets. Women and kids being forced out of their homes and kidnapped.”
He concluded by reiterating the need for civilians to be protected during the fighting, and for international law to be upheld.
“We stand with you my friends, tonight, tomorrow and every day,” he said.
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre also spoke at the event, referring to Hamas as a “sadistic, demonic genocidal terrorist death cult,” while calling for an investigation into the co-ordination of the attack. He theorized that Iran may have been involved.
“Hamas does not speak for the Palestinian people. It does not speak for Muslims and it surely does not speak for Canadians,” he said, adding that he condemns “the disgusting celebrations that we have seen on our streets,” seemingly in reference to pro-Palestinian rallies.
A Toronto rally was held Monday in Nathan Phillips Square, with an estimated 1,000 people waving flags and chanting, “Palestine will be free.”
A Monday statement(opens in a new tab) from Heather McPherson, the NDP critic for foreign affairs, echoed the condemnation of the “unjustifiable” Hamas attack and called for “the immediate safe return of all hostages.”
The statement also noted the Palestinians caught up in the violence, urging Canada to “insist Israel respect international law.”
“Civilians in Gaza are caught in a horrific cycle of violence; like the Israeli civilians killed over the past few days, Gazans are victims of Hamas’ brutality,” McPherson wrote. “The international community, Canada included, must work towards a credible peace process that will finally bring peace and security to all in the region, while respecting the humanity and rights of all civilians, Israeli and Palestinian.”
‘IT IS IMPORTANT FOR DIPLOMACY TO WORK’
Joly said she has focused on two goals over the past few days as the increasingly charged situation unfolds.
“First has been really to support Canadians,” she said. “And second, it’s to really try to de-escalate, along with regional partners that I’ve been in contact with.”
Joly has been in contact with her counterparts in Israel, Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the Palestinian Authority, as well as U.S. officials.
“We need to make sure that this conflict does not become even a broader conflict in the region,” she said, adding that while she understands the anger of Israelis impacted by the Hamas attack, “it is important for diplomacy to work.”
Joly confirmed that the embassies in Tel Aviv and Ramallah are both open for Canadians who are stranded and searching for aid.
“The team has been working since the beginning of this terrorist attack by Hamas — which of course we condemn — since Saturday,” she said. “At this point, what I can tell you is there’s 2,500 Canadians who’ve registered with the embassy in Israel, 500 … that have registered in Gaza and the West Bank, 800 calls have been received and responded (to) by the team.”
In order to address the increased demand for embassy aid, Joly said they have added more staff in Egypt, Lebanon and Jordan, as well.
Joly said she has been in contact with the Minister of Transport Pablo Rodriguez, but there are currently no plans to fly Canadians out of the region en masse, as it may be dangerous for them to flock to airports.
“So right now, the advice is to shelter in place, so we’ll continue to follow the local authorities’ security advice,” she said.
The phone number for Canadians to call if they are concerned about friends and loved ones in Israel or in the West Bank or Gaza Strip is 1-613-996-8885, Joly said.
“We’re there for Canadians, this is our utmost priority, and that’s what we’re doing right now,” she said.
“Meanwhile, we need to continue to engage with many countries in the region. I know that’s what my American counterpart is doing, Tony Blinken, that’s what also my European counterparts are doing in Germany and France, in the U.K. We’re all in contact also amongst each other, because this is a very, very difficult and problematic situation.”
NEW YORK (AP) — Teen smoking hit an all-time low in the U.S. this year, part of a big drop in the youth use of tobacco overall, the government reported Thursday.
There was a 20% drop in the estimated number of middle and high school students who recently used at least one tobacco product, including cigarettes, electronic cigarettes, nicotine pouches and hookahs. The number went from 2.8 million last year to 2.25 million this year — the lowest since the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s key survey began in 1999.
“Reaching a 25-year low for youth tobacco product use is an extraordinary milestone for public health,” said Deirdre Lawrence Kittner, director of CDC’s Office on Smoking and Health, in a statement. However, “our mission is far from complete.”
A previously reported drop in vaping largely explains the overall decline in tobacco use from 10% to about 8% of students, health officials said.
The youth e-cigarette rate fell to under 6% this year, down from 7.7% last year — the lowest at any point in the last decade. E-cigarettes are the most commonly used tobacco products among teens, followed by nicotine pouches.
Use of other products has been dropping, too.
Twenty-five years ago, nearly 30% of high school students smoked. This year, it was just 1.7%, down from the 1.9%. That one-year decline is so small it is not considered statistically significant, but marks the lowest since the survey began 25 years ago. The middle school rate also is at its lowest mark.
Recent use of hookahs also dropped, from 1.1% to 0.7%.
The results come from an annual CDC survey, which included nearly 30,000 middle and high school students at 283 schools. The response rate this year was about 33%.
Officials attribute the declines to a number of measures, ranging from price increases and public health education campaigns to age restrictions and more aggressive enforcement against retailers and manufacturers selling products to kids.
Among high school students, use of any tobacco product dropped to 10%, from nearly 13% and e-cigarette use dipped under 8%, from 10%. But there was no change reported for middle school students, who less commonly vape or smoke or use other products,
Current use of tobacco fell among girls and Hispanic students, but rose among American Indian or Alaska Native students. And current use of nicotine pouches increased among white kids.
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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
WASHINGTON (AP) — An Alabama man was arrested Thursday for his alleged role in the January hack of a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission social media account that led the price of bitcoin to spike, the Justice Department said.
Eric Council Jr., 25, of Athens, is accused of helping to break into the SEC’s account on X, formerly known as Twitter, allowing the hackers to prematurely announce the approval of long-awaited bitcoin exchange-traded funds.
The price of bitcoin briefly spiked more than $1,000 after the post claimed “The SEC grants approval for #Bitcoin ETFs for listing on all registered national securities exchanges.”
But soon after the initial post appeared, SEC Chairman Gary Gensler said on his personal account that the SEC’s account was compromised. “The SEC has not approved the listing and trading of spot bitcoin exchange-traded products,” Gensler wrote, calling the post unauthorized without providing further explanation.
Authorities say Council carried out what’s known as a “SIM swap,” using a fake ID to impersonate someone with access to the SEC’s X account and convince a cellphone store to give him a SIM card linked to the person’s phone. Council was able to take over the person’s cellphone number and get access codes to the SEC’s X account, which he shared with others who broke into the account and sent the post, the Justice Department says.
Prosecutors say after Council returned the iPhone he used for the SIM swap, his online searches included: “What are the signs that you are under investigation by law enforcement or the FBI even if you have not been contacted by them.”
An email seeking comment was sent Thursday to an attorney for Council, who is charged in Washington’s federal court with conspiracy to commit aggravated identity theft and access device fraud.
The price of bitcoin swung from about $46,730 to just below $48,000 after the unauthorized post hit on Jan. 9 and then dropped to around $45,200 after the SEC’s denial. The SEC officially approved the first exchange-traded funds that hold bitcoin the following day.
Google, Meta and TikTok have removed social media accounts belonging to an industrial plant in Russia’s Tatarstan region aimed at recruiting young foreign women to make drones for Moscow’s war in Ukraine.
Posts on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok were taken down following an investigation by The Associated Press published Oct. 10 that detailed working conditions in the drone factory in the Alabuga Special Economic Zone, which is under U.S. and British sanctions.
Videos and other posts on the social media platforms promised the young women, who are largely from Africa, a free plane ticket to Russia and a salary of more than $500 a month following their recruitment via the program called “Alabuga Start.”
But instead of a work-study program in areas like hospitality and catering, some of them said they learned only arriving in the Tatarstan region that they would be toiling in a factory to make weapons of war, assembling thousands of Iranian-designed attack drones to be launched into Ukraine.
In interviews with AP, some of the women who worked in the complex complained of long hours under constant surveillance, of broken promises about wages and areas of study, and of working with caustic chemicals that left their skin pockmarked and itching. AP did not identify them by name or nationality out of concern for their safety.
The tech companies also removed accounts for Alabuga Polytechnic, a vocational boarding school for Russians aged 16-18 and Central Asians aged 18-22 that bills its graduates as experts in drone production.
The accounts collectively had at least 158,344 followers while one page on TikTok had more than a million likes.
In a statement, YouTube said its parent company Google is committed to sanctions and trade compliance and “after review and consistent with our policies, we terminated channels associated with Alabuga Special Economic Zone.”
Meta said it removed accounts on Facebook and Instagram that “violate our policies.” The company said it was committed to complying with sanctions laws and said it recognized that human exploitation is a serious problem which required a multifaceted approach, including at Meta.
It said it had teams dedicated to anti-trafficking efforts and aimed to remove those seeking to abuse its platforms.
TikTok said it removed videos and accounts which violated its community guidelines, which state it does not allow content that is used for the recruitment of victims, coordination of their transport, and their exploitation using force, fraud, coercion, or deception.
The women aged 18-22 were recruited to fill an urgent labor shortage in wartime Russia. They are from places like Uganda, Rwanda, Kenya, South Sudan, Sierra Leone and Nigeria, as well as the South Asian country of Sri Lanka. The drive also is expanding to elsewhere in Asia as well as Latin America.
Accounts affiliated to Alabuga with tens of thousands of followers are still accessible on Telegram, which did not reply to a request for comment. The plant’s management also did not respond to AP.
The Alabuga Start recruiting drive used a robust social media campaign of slickly edited videos with upbeat music that show African women smiling while cleaning floors, wearing hard hats while directing cranes, and donning protective equipment to apply paint or chemicals.
Videos also showed them enjoying Tatarstan’s cultural sites or playing sports. None of the videos made it clear the women would be working in a drone manufacturing complex.
Online, Alabuga promoted visits to the industrial area by foreign dignitaries, including some from Brazil, Sri Lanka and Burkina Faso.
In a since-deleted Instagram post, a Turkish diplomat who visited the plant had compared Alabuga Polytechnic to colleges in Turkey and pronounced it “much more developed and high-tech.”
According to Russian investigative outlets Protokol and Razvorot, some pupils at Alabuga Polytechnic are as young as 15 and have complained of poor working conditions.
Videos previously on the platforms showed the vocational school students in team-building exercises such as “military-patriotic” paintball matches and recreating historic Soviet battles while wearing camouflage.
Last month, Alabuga Start said on Telegram its “audience has grown significantly!”
That could be due to its hiring of influencers, who promoted the site on TikTok and Instagram as an easy way for young women to make money after leaving school.
TikTok removed two videos promoting Alabuga after publication of the AP investigation.
Experts told AP that about 90% of the women recruited via the Alabuga Start program work in drone manufacturing.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speaks at a rally in support of Israel, at the Soloway Jewish Community Centre in Ottawa, Oct. 9, 2023. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Justin Tang
