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A new report published by World Beyond War, the Palestinian Youth Movement and the Arms Embargo Now campaign exposes Canadian arms exports to Israel over the past two years. Photo Andraé Lerone Lewis

Hannah Scott-Talib,
Local Journalism Initiative

Findings contradict federal government’s claims that no weaponry is being sent to Israel

A new report published by World Beyond War, the Palestinian Youth Movement and the Arms Embargo Now campaign reveals that, among other military equipment, nearly half a million bullets have been sent from Canada to Israel since 2023.

The report, titled “Exposing Canadian Military Exports to Israel,” states that the Canadian government has continued to facilitate the shipment of weaponry and military equipment to Israel “despite repeated statements asserting restrictions or prohibitions on such transfers.”

The report highlights 47 shipments transported from Canadian cities to Israel across 100 flights over the past two years. 

Data was compiled through two main sources. The first was commercial shipping data tracing direct shipments from Canadian manufacturers to Israel through July 2025. The second source was import data from the Israel Tax Authority (ITA) from October 2023 to May 2025. 

According to World Beyond War member Rachel Small, classification codes for bullets from the ITA import data allowed researchers to identify the specific number of bullets sent from Canada to Israel since late 2023. It amounts to 421,070 bullets in total. 

However, Small said that these bullets were just a handful of the hundreds of weapons shipments identified, which included cartridges and other ammunition, aircraft engines, radar equipment, composite pieces of F-35 fighter jets, navigation systems and more.

She added that many were shipped directly to Elbit Systems, the primary weapons supplier for the Israeli military. 

“These were weapons parts shipped by Canadian highways, maybe airports, railways and ports, from weapons manufacturers across Canada from coast to coast,” Small said in a press conference on July 29. “[This includes] dozens of flights we tracked down, out of Canadian airports, that carried live military cargo under civilian passenger seats.” 

Small then called out previous Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly and her statement from September 2024 that no arms or parts of arms would be sent to Gaza, as is “her position and the position of the Canadian government.”

“This report has now uncovered a shipment of cartridges manufactured by General Dynamics in Quebec and shipped to Tel Aviv,” Small said. “It occurred nine days after Joly’s declaration, and we’ve just tracked down another one that left just 11 days ago.” 

Small says this report’s investigation exposes one of the biggest propaganda campaigns in Canadian foreign policy in decades. 

“While Palestinian families buried their children under the rubble of Canadian-armed air strikes, fighter jet parts flew out of Halifax on Air Canada flights, hidden in the cargo beneath unsuspecting passengers,” she said. “The government turned our national airline into a covert military transport service while telling Canadians they had stopped arms exports to Israel.”

Alex Paterson, senior director of strategy and parliamentary affairs at Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East, was also present at the July 29 press conference. Paterson cited Canada’s Export and Import Permits Act to further condemn these shipments to Israel. 

“Arming these atrocities is supposed to be illegal,” Paterson said. “Canada’s Export and Import Permits Act is supposed to stop the transfer of arms where there is a risk of serious violation of international law. And yet, we still sell arms to Israel.”

Moving forward, Small claimed at the press conference that the Canadian government has two choices.

“Either it can try to continue to try to deceive the public, to issue empty statements about the need to ‘take action’ while continuing to ship weapons,” she said, “or it can end Canada’s [complicity] by immediately imposing a two-way arms embargo.”

Small believes the findings of the report do not reveal mistakes by the federal government, but rather a reflection of its current priorities.

“This isn’t bureaucratic oversight,” Small said. “This is systematic deception that makes Canada directly complicit in what most scholars and international organizations agree is a genocide.”