Police called in as protesters surround Canada’s Trudeau over Gaza conflict

By Barry Ellsworth

TRENTON, Canada (AA) – About 100 officers were dispatched to a restaurant where Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was dining late Tuesday after about 250 pro-Palestinian protesters surrounded the eatery, Vancouver police reported at a news conference, Wednesday.

Two men were arrested – one for allegedly assaulting a police officer and the other for obstruction - as protesters jeered Trudeau, waved Palestinian flags and demanded the prime minister call for a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war.

Police successfully extricated Trudeau from the restaurant around 10 pm local time and he was not injured.

But Palestinian protesters were not the only ones to serve up a dish of flak to Trudeau as he took several bites Wednesday from the Israeli side, too.

At a Tuesday news conference to announce a new battery plant in British Columbia, Trudeau called on Israel to exert maximum restraint for the protection of civilians as Israeli forces continue their strikes throughout Gaza.

“We're hearing the testimonies of doctors, family members, survivors, kids who've lost their parents. The world is witnessing this — the killing of women and children, of babies,” Trudeau said. “This has to stop.

“I have been clear that the price of justice cannot be the continued suffering of all Palestinian civilians. Even wars have rules. All innocent life is equal in worth — Israeli and Palestinian.”

Trudeau also called for Hamas to stop using Palestinians as “human shields” but Jewish leaders roundly condemned the prime minister’s remarks.

Michael Levitt, president and Chief Executive Officer of the Jewish rights group The Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Centre, said Trudeau’s “reckless accusations…are deeply concerning” as Jews are “reeling from weeks of surging antisemitism” in Canada.

Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reacted defensively in a social media post hours after Trudeau’s comments.

“It is not Israel that is deliberately targeting civilians, but Hamas that beheaded, burned and massacred civilians in the worst horrors perpetrated on Jews since the Holocaust,” Netanyahu posted. “The forces of civilization must back Israel in defeating Hamas barbarism.”