Israeli junior minister rejects outside probes of Gaza war

OTTAWA — As Canada escalates its criticism of how Israel is fighting the war in Gaza, one Israeli junior minister says her government won’t submit to international investigations of the war that it feels are meant to undermine the state’s legitimacy.

“We are a democracy with checks and balances and a robust judicial system,” said Sharren Haskel, Israel’s deputy minister of foreign affairs.

In an interview with The Canadian Press, the Toronto-born Haskel — whose role in Israel’s cabinet makes her the equivalent of a Canadian junior minister — said Canada needs to do more to combat the threats posed by Iran abroad and antisemitism at home.

“I’m not sure the average Canadian can truly understand what it is to fight on your existence against radical jihadist terrorist organization from six different fronts,” she said.

She said Israelis are fighting Iran and its proxies, such as Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthi movement in Yemen and Hamas in the Palestinian territories. The Iranian regime has for years called for the destruction of Israel.

But Canada has increasingly expressed concerns about casualty numbers and Israeli tactics in Gaza, and with how Israel’s occupying soldiers are patrolling the West Bank.

Haskel said Ottawa should let Israel investigate those concerns.

Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, resulting in what was the deadliest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust. Hamas and its affiliates killed 1,200 people in Israel and took 251 people hostage; they still hold roughly 50.

The attack prompted Israel to bombard Gaza. Hamas officials say Israeli military actions, including strikes on hospitals and refugee camps, have killed nearly 60,000 Palestinians since.

Canada has repeatedly warned that Israel may be violating international humanitarian law — a concern Prime Minister Mark Carney’s government has expressed in increasingly strong language since April’s federal election.

In May, Carney joined France and the U.K. in threatening Israel with “concrete actions” over restrictions on aid reaching the Gaza Strip and the expansion of illegal settlements in the West Bank.

In June, Ottawa joined Australia and others in sanctioning two far-right Israeli government ministers who they say had incited violence against Palestinians.

The Israeli government has allowed the newly formed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation to distribute aid in a handful of locations in Gaza under the supervision of Israeli troops, effectively shutting down hundreds of sites that had been operated by international agencies across the territory.

Israel says it had to take this step to prevent aid from reaching Hamas, which had been selling vital supplies and food to pay its fighters. Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand has said this amounts to Israel using food as a political tool.

Carney’s government said last month it is “deeply alarmed” by reports that hundreds have been killed in “scenes of chaos and appalling conditions, as people in Gaza attempt to access limited aid.”

Over the past 18 months, Canada has pushed for investigations of multiple incidents involving civilians — including the April 2024 killing of Canadian aid worker Jacob Flickinger, one of seven World Central Kitchen employees killed by Israeli airstrikes while delivering food.

Canada also demanded answers about the July 2024 demolition by Israeli soldiers of a large water facility in an area of the Gaza Strip where Canadian aid is often directed.

In May, Anand summoned Israel’s ambassador after its occupying force in the West Bank fired shots in the vicinity of Canadian and other diplomats during a humanitarian assessment of the Jenin refugee camp.

Israel has resisted calls for an international investigations of these incidents and hasn’t provided Ottawa with its own findings.

The Israeli government also does not allow journalists to visit Gaza unless they are embedded with Israeli soldiers — a practice Reporters without Borders has said is without precedent in modern warfare.

Haskel said any incident involving civilian injury or death at the hands of Israeli soldiers is unintentional. She said Israel tries to abide by humanitarian law by warning and evacuating people before military operations.

She said “mistakes” happen in Gaza because it’s a densely populated territory where Hamas embeds itself among civilians — intentionally, she argued, because civilian deaths ramp up international pressure on Israel to stop fighting Hamas.

Haskel argues the United Nations unfairly targets Israel while paying less attention to the actions of brutal dictatorships — a stance Canada echoed for years as it rejected most UN motions critical of Israel.

That stance changed in December 2023, when Canada started abstaining or even approving of motions calling out Israel.

Bob Rae, Canada’s ambassador to the UN, has cited concerns about Israeli policies that undermine Ottawa’s decades-long policy of calling for a Palestinian country existing in peace alongside Israel.

Rae voted last month for a UN motion demanding a ceasefire, saying “it is incontrovertible, undeniable that the humanitarian situation in Gaza is intolerable,” and accusing Israel of killing an “abhorrent” level of civilians while blockading aid.

Haskel said Israel wants peace with its neighbours but needs to neutralize threats to her country’s existence. She said that’s why Israel launched airstrikes against Iran, which has been enriching uranium but insists it wasn’t building a nuclear weapon.

Iran responded with strikes at Israel. Haskel said she had to move her three daughters — the oldest of them just four years old — into a bomb shelter during that 12-day campaign.

She said she modified a dresser to create an impromptu bunk bed in the shelter, so they could sleep through the night instead of repeatedly fleeing there. She said she sometimes sang to her children, to distract them from the sound of explosions.

“How do you explain that to babies? Seeing them starting to fear every time they hear the alarm, knowing the missiles and the rockets are coming,” she said.

“The only thing that went through our minds as Israelis is that, right now, we are securing their future and protecting them from literally a nuclear holocaust.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 8, 2025.

Dylan Robertson, The Canadian Press