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Dalya Eidda
Dalya Eidda [Dalia Awwad] spoke at a press conference at the pro-Hamas encampment at UofT in June 2024. Eidda also led a rally celebrating Hamas’ terror attack on Israel in October 2023 and spread hatred of Israel.
On June 6, 2024, Dalya Eidda spoke at a press conference at the encampment, saying [00:21:03] “...UofT students for the last almost seven months of the genocide on Gaza have been organizing and using every tactic in their arsenal to have the university divest, disclose and cut ties with Israeli apartheid and genocide…”
In the same speech, Eidda also claimed [00:21:35] that the UofT administration “...failed to engage with the students in any meaningful way, and the students [were] left with no choice [but to] establish this encampment…”
UofT is located in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Dalya Eidda Spoke at the Pro-Hamas Encampment at the University of Toronto (UofT)
On May 2, 2024, activists from the UofT Occupy for Palestine (Occupy UofT) group “stormed down” [00:00:24] the fencing around UofT’s Kings College Circle and set up a pro-Hamas encampment, which they called the “People’s Circle for Palestine.”
That day, Occupy UofT called on “community members to…help us defend our encampment” at an emergency rally in the evening. Protesters chanted [00:02:59] for “intifada” and celebrated “resistance” [00:02:45]. Both terms are calls for terrorism. The activists also chanted [00:01:28; 00:02:21] for Israel’s destruction multiple times.
One speaker, Nabil Jalbout, said [00:09:02]: “...we are not fighting for peace, we are fighting for liberation, because ‘peace’ is a white man's word.” Another speaker, Ahmad Jarrar Hajahmad, claimed [00:05:52]: “All these Israeli and Zionist entities fill all these politicians with money in their pockets…we already know who runs this system…”
Signs displayed at the encampment said: “LONG LIVE THE INTIFADA” and “LIBERATION FOR ALL REQUIRES RESISTANCE FROM ALL.”
On May 4, 2024, anti-Israel protesters at the encampment assaulted a Jewish man, punching him in the stomach as they forcibly took his Israeli flag. The attackers told the man [00:01:02]: “God bless the armed resistance,” and: “Go back to Europe!” They also reportedly called him “a “dirty Jew.”
Protesters “occupied” [00:00:17] the area from May to July 2024, despite UofT’s warning they were trespassing. The group said they would not leave until UofT divested from companies that “sustain Israeli apartheid, occupation and illegal settlement of Palestine” and terminated partnerships with Israeli academic institutions.
Following the October 7, 2023 massacre of nearly 1,200 Israelis, the inverted red triangle - 🔻- became a Hamas symbol. This symbol appeared on large signs at the encampment multiple times. Erin Mackey, one of the primary organizers, is openly pro-Hamas, having used the symbol in her activism. In addition, pro-Hamas marches that began in other parts of the city concluded at the encampment.
On July 3, 2024, the Ontario Superior Court of Justice issued an injunction at the request of UofT’s Governing Council, requiring students to clear the encampment. Occupy UofT dismantled the encampment and wrote [slides 5-6]: “We are just getting started…come fall, every incoming student will hear our message loud and clear…Whatever institution you have access to and influence over - you need to take this campaign there!” The statement concluded: “Long live the intifada.”
The encampment was one of over 140 pro-Hamas and anti-Israel college encampments set up in North America, and over 20 more globally, in the spring of 2024. The first began on April 17, 2024, at Columbia University. The encampments were unofficially known as the “student intifada,” borrowing a term associated with terrorist violence.
Protesters harassed Jewish students, blocked Jews from campus facilities and shouted anti-Semitic slogans. They occupied campus grounds, in many cases illegally, caused property damage, violently took over buildings, celebrated terrorism and promoted the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement.
Activists set up encampments to oppose Israel’s right to wage war against the Hamas terror group following October 7, 2023, when Hamas murdered approximately 1,200 people, including 32 American and 8 Canadian citizens. Hamas also kidnapped 252 people, including 11 Americans and the bodies of 2 murdered Canadians. As of May 26, 2024, 125 hostages remained in Hamas captivity.
For more information on the October 7, 2023 terror attacks, see the Canary Mission page on Hamas.
On October 9, 2024, Eidda led [01:04:17] a rally in Toronto celebrating the Hamas terror attacks that had taken place two days before. She can be seen in the video wearing a keffiyeh around her neck, speaking to the crowd and walking toward the right side of the screen.
On October 9, 2023, two days after Hamas invaded Israel and massacred over 1,200 Jews, PYM held a rally in Toronto celebrating the attack. A PYM Facebook post promoting the rally called Hamas “our heroic resistance in Gaza” and celebrated “over 30 Zionist hostages captured, the fall of settlements surrounding Gaza.”
The same PYM post said the attack “shaped a new precedent for our national liberation struggle and we remain steadfast in our right to resist by any means necessary.” PYM called on activists “to uplift and honour our resistance and our martyrs…and celebrate our steps closer to liberation!”
Protesters participated in the pro-terror chants [00:00:17]: “Intifada, intifada! Long live the intifada!” and “Be-ruh be-dam nifdik ya Aza [with spirit and blood we will redeem Gaza]!” They also chanted: “From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be free!,” a call for Israel’s destruction. One speaker said [00:00:20]: “When we say ‘Allahu Akbar’ it is a declaration of our celebration for our resistance and its victory against their occupier.”
On October 7, 2023, Hamas murdered approximately 1,200 Israelis, kidnapped hundreds and wounded thousands. War crimes included mass rape and torture. Many Palestinian civilians participated in and supported the attacks, and Gazans working in the targeted Israeli communities gave intelligence to Hamas on where to strike.
For more information, see the Canary Mission page on Hamas.
On February 1, 2024, Eidda gave an interview to anti-Israel publication The Grind, in which she said, referring to Israel’s war against Hamas terrorists: “...the Zionist state of Israel has been exercising a campaign of ethnic cleansing and genocide against the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip…This is a continuation of the 75-year-long ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people…We are demanding the lifting of the almost 17-year-long blockade on the Gaza Strip…”
The modern State of Israel was founded 75 years earlier, in 1948.
Israel and Egypt implemented a UN-approved [pp. 39–41] joint blockade of the Gaza Strip in 2011 to stop Hamas from acquiring more sophisticated rockets. Hamas went around the blockade by smuggling weaponry through tunnels under the Philadelphi corridor separating Gaza from Egypt.
Dalya Eidda is a supporter of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement.
As of April 2024, Eidda was an organizer [slide 4] and spokesperson for the Toronto chapter of the pro-terror activist group Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM). She had been an activist with PYM since at least 2021.
As of August 2024, Eidda was listed as an administrator at the Canadian Friends Service Committee (CFSC).
Also as of August 2024, Eidda’s LinkedIn profile said she graduated from UofT with a bachelor’s degree in history and political science, with a minor in women and gender studies, in 2016.
As of the same date, Eidda’s LinkedIn said she was located in Toronto.
