🍉 VanGran4Pal Community Newsletter
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**Neighbours and Friends, **
This week, our introductory words come from community member Mohammed:
GAZA update.
The ceasefire agreement has been signed and approved by the Knesset, yet the genocide continues. Since the deal was announced, at least 27 Palestinians have been killed and over 50 remain under the rubble as Israel continues its genocidal assault on the Strip.
Tens of martyrs have been discovered in areas from which the IOF withdrew; entire neighborhoods turned to rubble as they pull back to the so-called “agreed lines.” Homes and infrastructure continue to be demolished in their wake, leaving behind nothing but ruins.
This is not new. It’s the same pattern we’ve seen in 2008–2009, 2012, 2014 — and again today: every time a truce is near, or even after it’s signed, the occupation intensifies its attacks to inflict maximum destruction before retreating.
Gaza remains under siege and occupied, its people trapped in a nightmare disguised as a ceasefire. Thousands cannot return to their homes because they now fall inside Israeli-controlled zones — and many who try are shot at, risking death just to find shelter as the cold sets in.
Let’s not forget: over 15,000 civilians remain unaccounted for; buried under rubble, kidnapped by Israel, or killed and hidden in unknown places.
Reports from Gaza tonight confirm ongoing bombings every now and then. Gaza is still in the dark with no electricity, gas, clean water, reliable connections and internet, medical facilities, or even food. Safety remains an illusion, and silence remains complicity.
Now more than ever; please keep writing, keep speaking, keep remembering.
The world must not look away until there is a Free Palestine. 🇵🇸🍉
Action Updates
Stop Tax Subsidies for the Occupation!
The United Israel Appeal of Canada, Ltd. (UIAC) is a Canadian registered charity that states its purpose is to ““conduct social welfare programs in Canada and Israel.” These programs include “resettlement of new immigrants, student scholarships, community rehabilitation projects…” What the UIAC does not explicitly state, is just how much of their funds go to Israel, nor the details of these so called “resettlement” and “community” programs.
Click here to read the demands and tell the CRA to take urgent action
Call Out Ken Sim for his Libellous Remarks Against Sean Orr and the Palestine Movement!
This past week Mayor Ken Sim made libellous remarks and amplified dangerous misinformation about the Gaza solidarity movement in Vancouver.
Let Ken Sim know that Vancouverites will NOT tolerate abhorrent, defamatory rhetoric from our public officials. Tell him you know Sean Orr is right when he says, “being against what the UN calls a genocide is not controversial.”
Call the city at 604-873-7000 or visit Van311 to stand up for yourself and your neighbours against Ken Sim's nonsensical intimidation.
Upcoming Events
Gather for abducted comrades! | Today, October 10
📅 TODAY, Oct 10
🕕 5PM PST
📍**1455 Quebec street, so called “Vancouver” **
From @crescentjustivecollective: Via @rebelfolke
Image by @sumsgreenthumbs
Words by @joceyshadows
“Join us to raise some hell for the brave souls that have been abducted by the IOF in International waters just for wanting to deliver HUMANITARIAN AID to GAZA!!
Make some noise especially for our Indigenous Sister @mskwaasin_agnew !! A Cree/Dene land defender from Turtle Island who was aboard The Conscience
Bring your drums, medicines and your strong warrior voice to demand the release of ALL hostages!!”
Virtual Sit-In | Sunday, October 12
📅 Sunday, Oct 12
🕕 7 PM EST | 🕒 4 PM PST
From @gazancanadians: From the comfort of your home, stand in solidarity with hundreds across the country. Together we will:
✨ Meet the national organizers
✨ Learn about family reunification & Canada’s racist immigration policy
✨ Take collective action to strengthen our voices
This is our moment to unite, push forward our demands, and show that we will not be silenced.
Managing Occupation Educational Event | Thursday, October 16
🗓️** Thursday, Oct 16**
**🕣 6PM **
📍 1803 East 1st Ave
From @weaving.our.worlds:
Join us for an educational event examining the history of colonial recognition as part of imperial domination from Turtle Island to Palestine. Canada, UK, Australia and France are making statements at the UN recognizing some form of a Palestinian state, while the Zionist entity is escalating genocide in Gaza and still seizing land and expanding illegal settlements in the West Bank under a gutted and collaborationist Palestinian Authority. Palestinian refugees remain displaced and refused the right to return to their homeland, and Palestinians within 1948 borders live under the rule of a racist Jewish-supremacist entity.
We will hear from speakers how these recent announcements about recognition fit within a broader strategy of managing the occupation of Palestine, the imperialist history of the so-called two state illusion, and how Indigenous peoples in so-called Canada confront parallel settler-colonial dynamics of land theft, partition, and apartheid.
Full details & accessibility is on website, 🔗Register Here
VTU General Meeting | Sunday, October 19
📅 Sunday Oct 19th at 12PM PT
📍 Location: Red Gate Arts Society, 1965 Main St
From @vancouvertenantsunion: REGISTER NOW! Sunday, October 19th, VTU General Meeting on Building Tenant Power in the Broadway Corridor and beyond!
Please join the VTU’s Mount Pleasant Chapter for an afternoon of learning, group discussion and building up our collective strength! We’ll hear about organized tenants fighting against displacement in the Broadway area and the story of how tenants won protections in Metrotown, Burnaby.
** In Conversation with Dr Loubani | Thursday, October 2**
📆 Monday, October 20
⏰ 6 PM
📍 Shaughnessy Heights United Church
1550 West 33rd Avenue Vancouver, BC V6M 1A7
Dr. Loubani is a Canadian ER physician and humanitarian returned from a medical-aid mission in Gaza and will speak about the crimes he witnessed, including the forced-starvation, attacks on Nasser Hospital and the mass casualties resulting from the so-called ‘Gaza Humanitarian Foundation’. Dr Loubani has been on multiple aid missions to Gaza.
Dr. Loubani co-founded Glia, a medical solidarity organization that supports lifesaving care in low-resource areas and develops open-source medical tools to advance global equality. Come learn about the Glia project and how each of us can make a difference.
Ismailis for Palestine is proud to be organizing this event in collaboration with Independent Jewish Voices and very grateful to the Shaughnessy Heights United Church for opening their doors to host our event. Special thank you to Physicians Against Genocide for their support as well.
In Conversation with Saeed Teebi | Wednesday, October 22
📅 October 22
**🕘 8:30 PM **
📍 Waterfront Theatre
You Will Not Kill Our Imagination: Saeed Teebi in Conversation
Palestinian-Canadian author Saeed Teebi was at work on his first novel when the attacks on Gaza began in late 2023. The violence and cruelty of these ongoing attacks, accompanied by the assent and silence of international governments, have stunned many across the globe into a new state of permanent horror.
What does it mean to be of the Palestinian diaspora in such a moment? In this vital conversation centred around his memoir, You Will Not Kill Our Imagination, Teebi explores the effects of the genocide on the bodies, minds, and imaginations of Palestinians, and humanity as a whole. Omar El Akkad calls it “literature of the highest order… unwilling to flinch or submit to self-censorship.” This courageous work of resistance is as urgent as it is timeless. Moderated by Adel Iskandar.
Solidarity Through Detention Walls | Friday, October 31
📅 October 31st
🕘 7:00pm
📍Surrey Immigration Holding Centre, 13130 76 Ave, Surrey, BC V3W 2V6, Coast Salish Territories including the q̓ic̓əy̓ (Katzie), q̓ʷɑ:n̓ƛ̓ən̓ (Kwantlen), and Semiahma (Semiahmoo) peoples
From @weaving.our.worlds: 🎭 Wear a Halloween costume (no appropriation etc!)
Immigration Detention Centres are designed to enact violence. They are sites of fear, disorientation, isolation, and forced confinement. In 2022, on Christmas Day, a migrant detainee died in the Surrey Detention Center.
While many of us are witnessing the horrific violence of ICE detention in the US, few are aware of Canada's detention system. In the past year, the Canada Border Services Agency locked up 935 people in immigration detention in so-called BC. There is no legal limit to the length of time that the CBSA can detain migrants. Last year, they incarcerated 193 migrants for over 99 days each.
The detention regime, including so-called "Alternatives to Detention," is part of the racist deportation machine that keeps people afraid, surveilled and precarious. Carney's government is ramping up these systems - dedicating budget increases to CBSA, increasing deportations by 25% next year, and cutting access to permanent immigration status. Proposed Bill C-2 will allow the deportation of many asylum seekers without a hearing, cancellation of immigration documentation, and give police and intelligence agencies access to private information without a warrant.
We need solidarity and resistance to respond to these escalating legislated attacks and growing anti-migrant racism everywhere. Not one more detention, not one more detention! Abolish all detention and jails and borders!
This Halloween, let's confront this scary institution with solidarity. We will be outside the Detention Center with care and treats for loved ones coming during visiting hours, and send musical messages of solidarity for those on the inside.
Join us on Oct 31st at 7 pm!
Artist credit @olly.costello.art
Comedy Night for Gaza | Sunday, November 2
📅 ONovember 2nd
🕘 7:00pm
📍Slice of Life gallery
A night of standup comedy and Improv in solidarity with Palestine.
Palestinian artist @halagaza.ps will be selling handmade art!
win a cool painting of Sean Orr painted by @wharfie_boy
Attend the fundraiser for a chance to win it in the art raffle!
All proceeds go to Gazan Families.
Stand up performances by @randeenoodle and @ohheygretalin and a super fun improv jam!
You won’t want miss it ❤️
**A Newbie’s Guide to Getting Involved - Save the Date! | **
Sunday, November 16
📅 Sunday, November 16
🕘 Details TBD - save the date!
Vancouver Granville for Palestine, in collaboration with Al Awda Vancouver, presents “So you want to be an organizer?” A Newbie’s Guide to Getting Involved!
Join us for this in-person, half-day workshop on November 16th as we skill-up for Palestine!
If you’re new to organizing and want to get more involved, this crash course in Organizing 101 is for you.
From planning a digital action to mobilizing your “crew” and keeping that crew safe, we’re here to answer all those questions you have about becoming an organizer, but were too afraid to ask.
SAVE THE DATE: NOVEMBER 16!
Voices of Resilience | Thursday, December 4
📅 December 4th
**🕘 6 PM **
📍 Bell Performing Arts Centre, 6250 - 144th St. Surrey, BC
🎟️ Tickets here
When wit meets wisdom, the conversation gets real. Join Bassem Youssef and Dr. Gabor Maté live for an unfi ltered look at crisis, humanity, and hope.
With wit, candor, and compassion, two doctors with very different paths in life come together to dissect crisis from their distinct, and deeply human perspectives and unique styles. Expect sharp satire, tear jerking stories, soul-searching wisdom, and honest dialogue about trauma, oppression, and hope in the face of unimaginable circumstances.
This will be a fundraising event with all money raised going directly to Penny Appeal Canada’s Emergency Relief, delivering life saving humanitarian aid to those most in need.
Community Spotlight
Thoughts on the Italian Uprising
We hope you enjoy this insightful and informative piece on the Italian uprising for Gaza from community member Federica, with image above by Andrea Peruzzo.
Italy Is Rising: The Uprising the Media Doesn’t Want You to See
Over the past few weeks, more than two million people have taken to the streets in Italy. Not once, but twice.
Two national general strikes in eleven days. Public services shut down. Ports blocked. Transport halted. Highways literally occupied. Massive demonstrations in every major city — and hundreds of towns in between. Entire regions mobilized.
It’s the kind of collective uprising that hasn’t been seen in decades.
And yet — unless you’re plugged into independent media or have family in Italy, chances are you haven’t heard much about it.
The Canadian media has been mostly silent, in lockstep with much of the Western press — ignoring, downplaying, or outright erasing one of the most powerful expressions of anti-genocide, anti-establishment resistance Europe has seen in a generation.
What’s happening in Italy isn’t party-led. It is grassroots, worker-led, and bottom-up.
The protests are overflowing with ordinary people — students, unionists, elders, migrants, youth. They include representation across a broad section of the Italian political spectrum, though there are barely any party logos. No photo ops, no coordination with power. It’s a mass mobilization from below — and its heartbeat lies in the ports.
In Genoa and Livorno – two port cities with deep roots in the anti-fascist resistance to Nazi occupation – dockworkers have refused to load Israeli ships.
When the ZIM New Zealand, a cargo vessel suspected of carrying weapons to Israel, docked in Genoa late at night a couple of weeks ago, port workers — backed by entire swaths of the city — entered the port, demanded an inspection, and ultimately forced the ship to leave without loading a single container. Their union declared a 24-hour general strike to shield workers from retaliation.
The ship attempted to redirect to Livorno — where workers responded with their own strike, forcing the vessel to turn away again, empty.
“Not one nail will be loaded onto Israeli ships,” declared the USB union in Livorno.
“This is not just a matter of conscience — it’s a political message.”
What It Means for Us in Canada
The dam is breaking. The silence is ending. And ordinary people are stepping into the void where institutions have failed.
What’s happening in Italy didn’t begin cleanly. Early protests were hesitant. Messages were softened. Organizers tried to play the game — give “both sides.” Many still don’t care.
But despair burns away fear.
What we’re seeing now is a movement that no longer asks for permission — because it knows no one’s going to give it.
It doesn’t need leaders. Or branding. Just clarity. Humanity. And justice.
In my hometown of Milan, I saw a video of police officers laying down their shields and marching with the people.
Claps. Cheers. Tears. A moment of truth.
As an Italian, I am forever indebted to the dockworkers of Genoa and Livorno, and everyone else who is making their voice heard. They give us hope in the darkest of times.
**As a Canadian, I think it’s time we in Canada took a page from their book. **
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With gratitude and in solidarity,
Your Neighbours
Van Gran 4 Palestine
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