Trudeau: ‘Hands off Rafah’ protest at Toronto’s Mount Sinai hospital is antisemitism

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau joined a chorus of politicians condemning protesters demonstrating at Toronto’s Mount Sinai Hospital as antisemitism on Tuesday, though defenders alleged that activists were merely marching by the site on their way to the Israeli consulate.

“The demonstration at Mount Sinai Hospital yesterday was reprehensible. Hospitals are places for treatment and care, not protests and intimidation,” said Trudeau. “I strongly condemn this display of antisemitism. In Toronto and across Canada, we stand with Jewish communities against this hate.”

Pro-Palestinian protesters climbed the portico and scaffolding of the hospital and waved Palestinian flags. Marchers chanted, “Long live the Intifada.”

The Toronto Academic Health Science Network said that the protests trespassed on hospital property and risked disrupting operations. Dr. David Jacobs, president of the Ontario Association of Radiologists, wrote on X that a Jewish doctor, when attempting to leave, was waylaid by protesters banging on her car. The Toronto Police said that they were investigating the incident.

Mount Sinai was founded as a medical institution catering to Jewish patients, many of them immigrants who did not speak English, in an era when no other hospital would allow Jewish doctors to practice, and its logo retains a Star of David.

“Toronto’s Mount Sinai Hospital was established in the 1920s by Jews against the backdrop of antisemitism,” said the Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center. “Last night, it was the target of protesters chanting for violence and terror against Jews.”

Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow, in a Tuesday statement, recalled that she and her family were treated at Mount Sinai. She described the demonstration at the hospital as targeting a Jewish institution and as antisemitism.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford also cited the hospital’s treatment of his brother, late Toronto Mayor Rob Ford. He said during a Tuesday press conference that such protest activities at the hospital went against federal law and lacked “decency.”

Member of Provincial Parliament for York Centre Michael Kerzner said on social media that “the situation at Mount Sinai was not a peaceful protest and is unacceptable.”

Beaches-East York MP Nate Erskine-Smith condemned the actions at the site but saod that they “occurred during a large protest down a major street, and the target of that protest fairly focused on Israeli and US embassies [consulates].”

The "Hands off Rafah" protest was a massive organized event

On social media, participants argued against the politicians’ condemnations, claiming that the protesters merely passed by the hospital while marching from the US consulate to the Israeli one.

The “Hands off Rafah” event was announced by the local chapter of the Palestinian Youth Movement and Toronto 4 Palestine to protest the expansion of Israeli military operations against Hamas’s strongholds in Rafah.

“We must mobilize the masses and demand an end to this genocidal assault,” Toronto 4 Palestine wrote on Instagram on Sunday.

Videos posted by the group revealed chants of “There is only one solution, intifada revolution,” “no peace on stolen land,” and, in a variation of “from the river to the sea,” a protester leader said that “Palestine is almost free.”

One sign called to “free our political prisoners,” a common way for pro-Palestinian activists to refer to security prisoners in Israeli prisons, of whom the majority were convicted of terrorism.