Join us on Saturday, 28 July to remember the second Qana massacre in 2006, and to support the growing boycott against Israeli apartheid.

On July 30th, 2006, Israel’s airforce bombed the town of Qana in southern Lebanon, hitting a three-story apartment block in which Lebanese refugees fleeing the bombardments had taken shelter. The building collapsed under Israeli bombs, burying the people inside and killing many, including at least 16 children.

Human Rights Watch denounced Israel’s action as a war crime, noting a consistent failure on the part of Israel to distinguish between civilians and combatants in its 34-day assault on Lebanon last summer.

Over ten years previously, in 1996, Israel shelled Qana during its “Grapes of Wrath” military assault on Lebanon. Israel hit a United Nations compound where some 800 Lebanese civilians had taken refuge from the Israeli bombardment. According to the UN, 106 civilians were killed and many injured.

A investigation conducted by the UN concluded that “it is unlikely that the shelling of the United Nations compound was the result of gross technical and/or procedural errors” on the part of the Israeli military.

Israel must be held accountable for its war crimes in Lebanon, Palestine & throughout the Middle East. Join us on Saturday, July 28th to remember the 2nd Qana massacre, and to support the growing boycott movement targeting Israeli apartheid. Israel’s destabilizing role in the Middle East will never end until the unsustainable, unjust apartheid system, on which Israel is based, falls.This special picket to remember the Qana massacre is part of a biweekly picket of the downtown Montreal Chapters/Indigo bookstore. A Canada-wide boycott of Chapters/Indigo bookstore was launched in December 2006 to oppose the support that Heather Reisman and Gerry Schwartz, the company’s majority shareholders, give to Israeli apartheid.

Reisman and Schwartz have established a fund called “the HESEG Foundation for Lone Soldiers”, a program of financial support for former ‘lone soldiers’, non-Israelis who fight in the Israeli military, in defense of apartheid and occupation. Israeli ‘lone soldiers’ participated in last year’s military attack on the people of Lebanon.

At its peak, HESEG will distribute up to $3M a year to provide scholarships and other benefits to former ‘Lone Soldiers’ who remain in Israel.

As long as the majority shareholders maintain financial links to HESEG, this campaign calls on everyone to stop buying from Chapters, World’s Biggest Bookstore, SmithBooks, Coles, the Book Company and Indigospirit.

More information about the boycott of Indigo/Chapters in Canada:

* Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid Toronto: Resource Page.

More information on the Qana Massacre in Lebanon:

* BBC: Qana makes grim history again

* Massacre in Sanctuary; Eyewitness, Robert Fisk.

* Electronic Lebanon: Human Rights and Development

More information about the international movement of
Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israeli apartheid:

* Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Against Israel Campaign.

* Palestinian Grassroots Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign.

* Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel PACBI.