Justin Trudeau, Canada’s prime minister, on Thursday called unacceptable the violence that followed an overnight shooting at two Jewish schools in Montreal and clashes between students at a university in the same city late Wednesday.
On Thursday, police were investigating overnight shootings at two Jewish schools in Montreal. Bullet holes were found in the front doors of both schools Thursday morning, local media reported. There were no injuries and it is not known yet if the incidents are linked to each other.
A violent scuffle broke out at Concordia University on Wednesday between people with opposing views on the conflict in Israel and Gaza. One person was arrested and several people were injured in the incident, CBC News reported. Trudeau told reporters in the Montreal area on Thursday:
I understand that people are so profoundly disturbed by what they see happening there. However, violence, hate, anti-Semitism, Islamophobia and scenes such as the ones we saw in Concordia University or shots fired at Jewish schools overnight – all of that is unacceptable.
Police said the number of hate crimes against Jews and Muslims more than doubled in the three weeks after the first Hamas attack on October 7, compared to the entire year 2022 in Toronto.
Israeli authorities say the attack by the Palestinian militant group Hamas killed about 1,400 people and took more than 240 hostages. Subsequent Israeli bombardment of the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip has killed more than 10,000 people, Palestinian health authorities say.
