Editor’s note: This was originally posted on February 28, 2025 but is being regularly updated with new endorsements and information.
We’re coming together to demand the Canadian government condemn Israel’s killing, injuring, and detaining of children. We support the call for Canada to impose a full, immediate arms embargo on Israel.
Protect Palestinian Children Now is a follow-up to Defense for Palestinian Children International’s (DCPI) No Way to Treat a Child 2018 campaign. As part of the 2018 campaign, over 20 MPs signed a letter calling for action to protect Palestinian children and hold the Israeli government accountable for its actions in regard to military detention and treatment of Palestinian children.
Table of Contents
- Latest Updates
- Why the Updated Campaign?
- Why Focus on Children?
- What is the goal of the PPCN Campaign?
- Take Action Now
- MP Endorsements
- Organizational Endorsements
- Additional Information on Israel’s Mistreatment of Children
- Additional Posts on PPCN
Why the updated campaign?
As Israel has escalated its “chronic, insidious genocide” over the last 16 months, Palestinian children have not been spared. Rather, they continue to be targeted, injured, tortured, and killed. Israel has a long history of cruelly targeting Palestinian children through:
- its disproportionate killing in all its military incursions,
- its incremental genocide of injuring in bombing and shooting, including the knees and eyes of children and leaving them maimed for life,
- its withholding of essential health care and nutritional needs,
- the intentional terrorizing of children with nightly sonic boom flights over Gaza, and ongoing bombing, and through acts such as night raids and house demolitions
- widespread and systematic ill-treatment of Palestinian children in the Israeli military detention system
Why focus on children?
While we advocate for the rights of all Palestinian people, there is ample moral, legal, and ethical weight to an argument that children shouldn’t be injured, imprisoned, or killed. As signatory to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, Israel has an obligation to ensure basic due process rights and the absolute prohibition against torture and ill-treatment of children in accordance with international juvenile justice standards. Under Article 1 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, all high signatories, of which Canada is one, are required to take actions to ensure that violations of the Fourth Geneva Convention do not occur under any circumstance. This is embedded in Canadian law in the Geneva Convention Act.
Further, there should be nothing controversial about this call to action.
What is the goal of the PPCN campaign?
The main goal: to obtain endorsements / support from Canadian MPs to
condemn Israel’s killing, injuring, and detaining of Palestinian children, and the trauma that is being inflicted on children through the military occupation and genocide. This includes insisting in a military arms embargo by Canada, and that Canada take immediate and urgent steps to insist Israel comply with its obligations under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and the recent ICJ Advisory Opinion.
Additionally, PPCN aims to:
- Highlight the Canadian’s governments legal obligations under the Fourth Geneva Convention / Geneva Convention Act and Israel’s obligations as a signatory to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child;
- Ensure the protection of the rights of children around the world is a priority of the Canadian government; and
- Amplify the decades long work of Al-Haq, Defense for Children International Palestine and other human rights groups who have investigated, documented, and exposed human rights violations against children.
Take Action Now
For individuals
- Ask your MPs to endorse the PPCN campaign. Use our printable materials to share with your community and candidates.
- Commit to contacting your MP directly and (optionally) get connected with other folks in your area.
- Have you heard from MP? Let us know by emailing supportPPCN@pm.me
For MPs or Senators
If you are an MP or Senator and want to support this campaign, fill out this form or email supportPPCN@pm.me.
For organizations
If you would like to add your name to this campaign, fill out this form.
Initial Organizational Signatories
Ontario Palestinian Rights Association
Defense for Children International Palestine
MP Endorsements
6 current Members of Parliament have endorsed this campaign.
| Name | Party |
|---|---|
| Elizabeth May | Green Party |
| Heather McPherson | NDP |
| Gord Johns | NDP |
| Don Davies | NDP |
| Nathaniel Erskine-Smith | Liberal |
| Salma Zahid | Liberal |
Additional Endorsing Organizations
As of May 5, 2025, a total of 122 organizations have endorsed this campaign from 12 different countries (Canada, France, Sri Lanka, UK, US, Indonesia, South Africa, Australia, Palestine, Egypt, Argentina, and The Netherlands).
Don’t see your name here but want to endorse the PPCN campaign? Fill out this form.
Looking for more information on Israel’s mistreatment of children?
Since 1967, Israel has operated two separate legal systems in the same territory. In the occupied West Bank, Israeli settlers are subject to the Israeli civilian and criminal legal system whereas Palestinians live under military law. Israel has the dubious distinction of being the only country in the world that systematically prosecutes between 500 and 700 children in military courts each year.
DCIP reported on August 21, 2024, that “Israeli forces are systematically detaining and torturing Palestinian children in the Gaza Strip, including using some as human shields.”
