How Canada’s Purchases Of Israeli Weapons Fuel Genocide

Nov. 20, 2025

A transcript of a testimony given by The Maple’s news editor at a “people’s tribunal” on Canadian complicity in Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

Below is a transcript of a testimony given by The Maple’s news editor, Alex Cosh, at a “people’s tribunal” on Canadian complicity in Israel’s genocide in Gaza. The conference was held in Ottawa on November 14 and 15.

I’m going to speak today about Canada’s purchases of Israeli weapons, military equipment and technology. 

Whereas the Government of Canada has taken steps to give the misleading appearance of restricting some military exports to Israel, it has continued to buy Israeli weapons with no evidence of any restrictions on these procurements whatsoever.

Addressing this issue is more urgent than ever, particularly as the Liberal government is committed to increasing military spending towards an unprecedented 5% of national GDP by 2035. This means even more procurements could be on the way. 

I will focus on some recent examples of Canada’s dealings with several Israeli arms and security companies, including some that have explicitly marketed their products as being battle-tested on Palestinians.

The companies I will discuss today include: Elbit Systems, Rafael Advanced Defence Systems, SmartShooter, and Cellebrite.

But first, I want to explain exactly how purchases of Israeli weapons and technology aid Israel’s genocide, and its occupation and system of apartheid over Palestinians.

First, and most obviously, these contracts use taxpayer dollars to help sustain the profitability of Israeli companies that play key roles in supplying the Israeli military with the tools it needs to carry out the genocide in Gaza.

Second, by feeding the growth of Israel’s domestic arms industry, Canada is helping Israel to reduce its reliance on foreign imports, thus weakening the potential impact of current and future arms embargoes on Israel.

As recently as September this year, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu explicitly called for Israel to develop a self-sufficient arms industry due to Israel’s growing diplomatic isolation. 

Third, by further integrating Israel’s arms manufacturers into its military supply chains, Canada is providing Israel with more leverage to deter against imposing sanctions.

As pointed out by Australian researcher Antony Loewenstein, Israel sells its “battle-tested” military goods around the world in part as an insurance policy against international criticism. 

Put simply: If international buyers become increasingly reliant on Israeli arms and technology, they may be less inclined to criticize Israel for fear that Israel will stop supplying them with military goods.

It is for these reasons that we are specifically calling for a “two-way” arms embargo on Israel.

I will now give some key examples of Canada’s dealings with Israeli arms companies in the past five years.

First: In 2020, Canada awarded Elbit Systems a $36-million contract to procure the company’s Hermes 900 Starliner aerial drone to conduct surveillance patrols in the Arctic. 

The following year, Canada awarded an $8.6 million USD acquisition and in-service support contract with Elbit Systems UK for Canada’s Airspace Coordination Centre Modernization project.

Despite Canada’s stated plan to use a “civilian” version of Elbit’s Hermes drone, Israel has used a military version of the same drone in its past and present attacks on Gaza.

Since Oct. 7, 2023, Israel has used the Hermes 450, known informally as the “zik,” to conduct attacks and surveillance missions over Gaza, the occupied West Bank and Lebanon.

In one particularly well-publicized case, on April 1, 2024, Israel used the Hermes 450 to deliberately kill seven World Central Kitchen aid workers, including one, Jacob Flickinger, who was a Canadian citizen.

The Israeli military has also made use of Elbit-made MRP-500 missiles in its attacks on Gaza and Lebanon. According to Human Rights Watch, this included an attack on an emergency relief centre in south Lebanon on March 27, 2024.

Elbit’s technology can also be found in Israel’s apartheid wall in the occupied West Bank and in the high-tech surveillance systems surrounding the Gaza Strip, which gave Gaza its reputation of being the world’s largest open air prison.

Elbit is Israel’s largest arms company and plays a huge role in supplying the Israeli military with a range of components and munitions besides the ones already mentioned.

It’s safe to say that as far as Elbit is concerned, the genocide in Gaza has been good for business — but not only because of sales to the Israeli military.

In May this year, Reuters reported that Elbit had a backlog of orders worth $23.1 billion USD, with two-thirds of the orders coming from outside of Israel. 

The company’s CEO told Reuters: “I see still a growing demand in the Israeli market ... but strategically, growth should come from abroad.”

Another Israeli company to have profited from the genocide is Rafael Advanced Defence Systems. In March, the company reported an order backlog of $17.76 billion USD and a 27% growth in sales year over year, approximately half of which were to international customers.

Months later, however, Israeli media reported that Rafael was among the Israeli companies hit by cancellations of contracts with the Spanish government, amid outrage at Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

But Canada has not followed Spain’s example, and in fact went ahead with plans to spend approximately $43 million on Rafael’s Spike LR2 anti-tank missiles, a deal first announced in December 2023.

These missiles were purchased for Canadian troops participating in Operation Reassurance, a NATO mission in Latvia.

Rafael is wholly owned by the state of Israel and, like Elbit, plays a crucial role in supplying the Israeli military, as well as NATO armies. Spike missiles in particular have been used in Israel’s past and present attacks on Gaza.

In 2014, Human Rights Watch reported that on August 3 of that year, “an apparent Israeli Spike guided missile hit directly outside a UN-run boys’ school in Rafah, killing 12 people, including 8 children, and wounding at least 25.”

Two months into Israel’s current genocide in Gaza, the Jerusalem Post reported that Israel was using high-tech munitions belonging to Rafael’s Spike missile family in its attacks on Gaza.

The Spike missile was also likely used in the attack on the World Central Kitchen aid workers, mentioned above. 

The fact that Jacob Flickinger, the Canadian citizen who was killed in the strike, was also a veteran of the Canadian Armed Forces, did not deter the Department of National Defence from going ahead with the contract.

In fact, we discovered through an access to information request that less than three weeks after the World Central Kitchen attack, department staff were discussing plans to send 29 Canadian military personnel to Israel for training in how to use the newly purchased weapons.

This was not Canada’s only face-to-face interaction with Israeli weapons that took place last year.

In May and June 2024, DND hosted trial sessions for arms technology made by the Israeli company Smart Shooter during a three-week “sandbox” event in Suffield, Alberta. Specifically, the sessions tested the Smash Hopper counter-drone weapon station.

Smart Shooter’s technology is deployed by the Israeli military in fortifications that are used to suppress Palestinian dissent in the occupied West Bank, as well as in military hardware used in Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

In December 2023, Smart Shooter CEO Michal Mor boasted that her company’s goods, which include high-tech rifle optics as well as remote control turrets, were being used by the Israeli military in Gaza in both face-to-face combat and to take out drones.

The Department of National Defence featured an image of the Smart Shooter technology in a promotional video posted to one of its official Twitter accounts after the Alberta sandbox event. 

This year, the company was reported to have secured a $13 million USD contract with the U.S. Army, and supplies other NATO militaries, including the United Kingdom, Germany and the Netherlands.

Finally, I want to highlight the federal government’s purchases of cellular device hacking technology manufactured by the Israeli company Cellebrite. 

While this does not constitute a military sale per se, Cellebrite technology has reportedly been used by Israeli police to facilitate the deportation of Palestine solidarity activists in the occupied West Bank.

A search of the federal government’s database of contracts shows that various federal departments spent a total of $5.9 million on contracts for Cellebrite equipment, software, licensing fees and courses over the past 10 years.

The federal buyers include the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, the RCMP, the Canada Border Services Agency, the Canada Revenue Agency, the Transportation Safety Board of Canada, Shared Services Canada and Environment and Climate Change Canada. Local police forces across Canada are also known to be using Cellebrite technology.

In October 2024, +972 Magazine interviewed German Palestine solidarity activists who said they were detained in the occupied West Bank and had their mobile devices hacked by Israeli police using Cellebrite technology.

Drop Site News, meanwhile, reported last year that Cellebrite has “played a central role in the war in Gaza.” An Israeli media outlet reported that Cellebrite received funding from the U.S. Pentagon to develop technology to map the locations of Palestinian resistance fighters in Gaza.

The federal government’s contracts with Cellebrite have also prompted concerns about the potential impact of such technology on the privacy of Canadians.

What I have outlined today is a snapshot of Canadian purchases of Israeli military goods and technology, and is the tip of the iceberg of Canada’s larger arms trade with Israel. 

As noted in a Library of Parliament report that was leaked to the public in August this year, Canada imported at least $37.8 million of Israeli military goods between 2020 and 2024. The categories of goods included battle tanks, ammunition, military weapons, small arms, and components and parts.

Based on my research on this subject, it is my opinion that by continuing to procure Israeli military goods and technology, the Government of Canada has used taxpayer dollars to help strengthen Israel’s domestic arms industry, which plays a crucial role in arming Israel’s genocide in Gaza.