Briefing documents newly obtained by The Maple show that a Canadian defence official travelled to Israel for a “strategic dialogue” at the height of Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza and weeks after Israel killed a Canadian army veteran.
The meeting reflected the fact that “Israel remains a priority defence engagement country for Canada due to its reliability and mutual commitment to regional security in the Middle East,” according to the documents.
The briefing documents were prepared for a meeting with Israeli Ambassador Iddo Moed in July 2024, and noted that Canadian Assistant Deputy Minister Scott Millar had led a delegation to Israel for a forum regarding the Canada-Israel Strategic Partnership in May.
The documents stated that, “the meetings presented a unique opportunity to receive Israel’s insight on regional developments, its medium-term plans, and to demonstrate [the Department of National Defence and Canadian Armed Forces’] enduring support to our bilateral relations.”
On April 1, 2024, Israeli forces deliberately killed seven World Central Kitchen aid workers in Gaza, including Jacob Flickinger, a Canadian citizen and an 11-year army veteran.
The briefing documents made no mention of the killing, which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu dismissed as something that “happens in wartime.” Israel this year announced that it would not pursue a criminal investigation into the killings.
The briefing documents show another example of how the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) and Department of National Defence (DND) continued to maintain and deepen their ties with Israel as it commits genocide in Gaza and despite the Liberal government’s occassional diplomatic clashes with the Israelis.
In January 2024, Canada’s then-defence attaché in Israel Col. Andrew Cleveland said he attended a briefing with Israeli academic Dan Schueftan, who has publicly compared Palestinians to “cockroaches.”
Despite Israel’s killing of Flickinger three months later, DND proceeded with a $43 million contract with Israeli arms company Rafael Advanced Defence Systems to purchase the same type of missile that Israeli forces likely used to kill the aid workers.
Alex Cosh
In July and August 2024, Canadian troops travelled to Israel for training in how to use the newly purchased weapons, which were acquired for Operation Reassurance, Canada’s NATO mission in Latvia.
In November 2025, Canadian troops and RCMP personnel took part in an “international seminar” hosted by the Israeli military in Tel Aviv.
Some of the participants included members of Operation Proteus, through which Canada works with Israeli forces to train the Palestinian Authority Security Forces, whose primary function is to crack down on Palestinian resistance groups in the occupied West Bank.
According to Israeli media, the seminar was hosted to showcase Israel’s tactics in Gaza and to “strengthen cooperation, enhance familiarity with diverse operational approaches, exchange professional knowledge and experience between the participating militaries.”
A briefing document about the event written by Canada’s defence attaché in Israel said the RCMP could apply lessons from the seminar to “Canadian law enforcement contexts,” and also suggested the Canadian Army Command and Staff College would “integrate operational lessons into professional military education.”
Alex Cosh
DND later told The Maple that there were no plans to overhaul the institution’s curricula based on the seminar.
Nonetheless, the briefing document stated that “Canada’s presence [at the seminar] demonstrated solidarity with democratic nations facing security challenges,” and suggested that Israel provided lessons in how to “strengthen legitimacy in military operations globally.”
This enduring cooperative spirit with the Israeli military was also reflected in the July 2024 briefing document that was prepared for the meeting with Ambassador Moed.
That document hailed the “mature and extensive bilateral defence relationship with the Israel Ministry of Defence and the Israeli Defence Forces (IMoD/IDF).”
“This is reflected by several annual senior-level visits, training exchanges and cooperation in intelligence sharing and capacity building.”
The document added: “For its part, Israel values its friendship with Canada and seeks to increase senior-level visits and expand defence cooperation into new areas of shared interest.”
The Canada-Israel Strategic Partnership, which was launched in 2008 under Conservative prime minister Stephen Harper, pledges to “strengthen … defence and security cooperation by continuing to fully implement existing security initiatives and by intending to enhance information and intelligence sharing while seeking new opportunities to fulfill [Canada and Israel’s] shared vision of safe and secure societies.”
In describing Millar’s May 2024 visit to Israel, the briefing document stated that “[The ADM] shared DND/CAF’s regional objectives in the Middle East (counterterrorism, peacekeeping, Middle East Peace Process), highlighting that in the short-term, we expect to continue decreasing our footprint in the region given our reconstitution efforts.”
More recently, however, the Liberal government of Prime Minister Mark Carney has massively ramped up military spending and is committed to expanding Canada’s overseas military footprint, not decreasing it.
At a recent press briefing in Montreal, Defence Minister David McGuinty said: “We will continue to expand our presence in the Middle East, expand our presence in the Indo Pacific, and of course expand our presence and acquit ourselves of our responsibilities in the Arctic.”
McGuinty has previously hinted at providing military support to Gulf countries that hosted U.S. military bases and have come under fire from Iran’s retaliatory strikes that followed the U.S.-Israeli war of aggression against it.
Canada and Israel’s diplomatic ties came under strain after the Liberal government of Justin Trudeau paused some military export permits to Israel in early 2024.
However, as reported by The Maple this week, the Liberal government expressed regret about the “adverse impact” of that pause in the briefing documents prepared for the July 2024 meeting with Moed.
Alex Cosh
The Carney government formally recognized the State of Palestine in September 2025 and more recently pledged to ban goods from illegal Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank, prompting some angry words from Israeli officials.
In June 2026, Israel announced that it was withdrawing its defence attaché from the Israeli embassy in Ottawa, in what was seen as another diplomatic rebuke against Ottawa.
In October, however, the Israeli embassy announced the accreditation of a new defence attaché, Col. Liron Biton.
Israel’s genocide in Gaza has so far killed at least 74,000 Palestinians, although the true number is likely significantly higher.
Israel’s attacks have damaged or destroyed around 82 per cent of all buildings in Gaza, including a cemetery that contained the remains of 22 Canadian peacekeepers.
The Israeli military said it dug up the soldiers’ remains to destroy a tunnel and could not provide any assurances that it had taken measures to preserve the human remains.
