MONTREAL – Montreal activist and doctor Nimâ Machouf is calling on Prime Minister Mark Carney to pressure Israel to commit to the peace plan backed by the U.S., saying humanitarian aid must enter the Gaza Strip as soon as possible.
The Canadian Press spoke with the epidemiologist after she landed at Montreal’s Trudeau International Airport on Sunday evening, just days after she was detained by the Israeli army for attempting to bring aid to Gaza by sea.
“Canada should have acted years ago to prevent the genocide in Gaza,” she said. “It’s imperative we stop selling arms to Israel, because even though there’s a peace agreement we never know how long it will last.”
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Machouf was among several Canadians that had been aboard The Conscience, a vessel that was among a flotilla intercepted last week by the Israeli military. A crowd of activists carrying Palestinian flags and her husband Amir Khadir were all at the airport Sunday evening, eager to greet her.
After being intercepted by Israeli military forces she said she and others on the vessel were detained in a high-security prison where they were subject to humiliation.
“They were aggressive and tortured us psychologically by depriving us of sleep, destabilized us psychologically by giving us contradictory orders and moving us around a lot,” she told The Canadian Press.
At one point while locked up in a cell, guards threatened to spray her and her cellmates with tear gas, she also said.
“They kidnapped us and took us by force to the port of Ashdod, then accused us of entering Israel illegally, but we didn’t go to Israel, we were taken there by force,” the activist said, saying they were in international waters when the interception happened.
“At every turn Israel has attempted to change the narrative so it can give its own version of what happened.”
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Khurram Musti Khan, of Milton, Ont., who was aboard the same flotilla, landed Sunday in Toronto.
Newfoundlanders Sadie Mees, Devoney Ellis, and Nikita Stapleton, also on the vessel, have since been released and are expected to land in Toronto on Monday.
Carney is currently in Egypt where he took part in the signing of a Middle East peace plan with other world leaders including U.S. President Donald Trump.
The gathering of world leaders, dubbed “Summit for Peace,” comes as Hamas released 20 remaining living Israeli hostages and Israel started to free hundreds of Palestinians from its prisons.
Machouf said she wants to see the establishment of a secure corridor in Gaza so that people there can get the humanitarian aid they desperately need. A famine has been declared by UN-backed agencies and international NGOs there since this August.
She also called on Canada to immediately end any trade deals it has with Israel that put Palestinian lives in danger.
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“(Israel) will not respect any laws, rules or morality unless its faced with restrictions,” Machouf said.
Ottawa insists it hasn’t been allowing exports of lethal weapons to Israel and has been blocking any military goods that could be used in Gaza.
In March 2024, Parliament voted in favour of a non-binding motion to halt new arms permits for Israel. The government announced a review of export permits then and suspended about 30 of them to determine whether they involved lethal uses.
Ottawa has allowed all other military export permits for Israel to continue, however, prompting outcry from advocates.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 13, 2025.
With files from Dylan Robertson.
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