This post is a one-time exception and international news will not become a regular part of our scope of coverage.
An Official Statement from The Langley Union
The Langley Union stands in unwavering solidarity with the murdered Palestinian journalists and all civilians in Gaza who continue to face systematic displacement and extermination at the hands of the Israeli government.
We join over 250 media outlets worldwide in condemning Israel's deliberate targeting of journalists as part of its broader genocidal campaign against the Palestinian people.
The recent killing of five journalists at Nasser Hospital (Al Jazeera's Mohammad Salama, Reuters cameraman Hussam al-Masri, and Associated Press freelancer Mariam Abu Daqqa, Ahmed Abu Aziz, and Moaz Abu Taha) represents more than individual tragedies.
These murders are calculated attacks on press freedom designed to silence witnesses to genocide.
With at least 278 media workers killed by Israeli forces in just 22 months, this systematic targeting of journalists constitutes a war crime of unprecedented scale.
Beyond Individual Tragedy: Understanding Systemic Violence
As a publication committed to exposing the root causes of oppression, we recognize that the violence in Gaza cannot be understood in isolation.
The Israeli military's actions represent the sharp edge of a broader imperial project that serves both regional and global capitalist interests.
Gaza has become a laboratory for military technologies, surveillance systems, and population control methods that will inevitably be deployed against working-class communities worldwide.
This is what scholars call the "Imperial Boomerang" - the ways that techniques of control and violence developed in colonial contexts return to be used against populations in the imperial core.
The tear gas fired at Palestinian protesters is the same gas used against striking workers. The surveillance technologies tested on Palestinian communities are sold to police departments across North America.
The dehumanization of Palestinian life serves as a template for how capital and state power will treat any population that threatens their interests.
Gaza as Testing Ground for Future Wars
We must understand Gaza not merely as a site of humanitarian crisis, but as a proving ground for the methods of warfare that will define conflicts in an era of climate breakdown and growing class struggle.
The Israeli military has openly marketed its weapons systems as "battle-tested" in Gaza, selling these tools of oppression to governments and private security firms around the world.
The techniques of urban warfare being refined in Gaza (e.g. the systematic targeting of hospitals, schools, and journalists; the use of artificial intelligence to select targets; the deployment of starvation as a weapon of war) represent the future of how powerful states will respond to popular uprisings and resource conflicts.
Every innovation in the machinery of death tested on Palestinians today will be deployed against striking workers, climate refugees, and indigenous land defenders tomorrow.
The Working-Class Connection
For working-class communities in Langley and across British Columbia, Palestinian liberation is not a distant cause but an urgent matter of solidarity and self-interest.
The same forces crushing Palestinian resistance are those that suppress labor organizing, criminalize environmental activism, and militarize responses to Indigenous sovereignty movements.
The weapons companies profiting from genocide are the same corporations that exploit our labor and destroy our environment.
When Israeli forces murder journalists like Mohammad Salama and Anas al-Sharif, they are not just silencing voices from Gaza - they are sending a message to all journalists who would expose state violence and corporate crime.
The explicit targeting of Palestinian media workers represents an escalation in the global war against independent journalism that already threatens reporters covering police violence, environmental destruction, and worker exploitation in our own communities.
Our Commitment to Truth and Justice
The Langley Union condemns the Israeli government's ongoing genocide against the Palestinian people in the strongest possible terms.
We reject the false equivalencies and both-sides journalism that treats the systematic extermination of a captive population as merely another "conflict."
This is not a war - it is the methodical destruction of Palestinian society by one of the world's most advanced military powers.
We call on our readers to:
- Demand that the Canadian government impose a full, immediate arms embargo on the state of Israel. You can sign on to that demand here.
- Use letters to the editor and direct engagement on social media to demand that Canadian media outlets stop parroting Israeli propaganda and begin covering Gaza as the genocide it is.
- Join local BDS campaigns targeting companies that profit from Israeli apartheid and occupation.
- Connect Palestinian liberation to struggles for housing justice, worker rights, and environmental protection in our own communities.
- Challenge the normalization of surveillance and militarization that treats all communities as potential threat.
- Discuss the ongoing genocide with your friends and family; don't be afraid to challenge their sense of comfort in watching a genocide from the sidelines.
International Solidarity as Local Struggle
True solidarity recognizes that Palestinian liberation and working-class liberation are inseparable struggles against the same system of exploitation and domination.
The Israeli state's war machine is funded by the same financial institutions that extract wealth from our own working communities right here in Langley.
The surveillance technologies tested on Palestinians are deployed against Indigenous water protectors and pipeline opponents in British Columbia.
As media workers ourselves, we understand that defending press freedom in Gaza means defending the right of all journalists to expose injustice without fear of state retaliation.
Every murdered Palestinian journalist represents an attack on the fundamental principle that truth-telling must be protected, especially when it challenges power.
The over 63,000 Palestinians killed by Israeli forces represent more than statistics - they are teachers, healthcare workers, farmers, journalists, students, and families whose dreams and struggles mirror our own.
Their resistance against occupation and apartheid is part of the same global movement for dignity and justice that includes every strike, every protest, every act of solidarity against oppression.
The Voices of the Murdered
Once again, please be warned that these posts are disturbing and will likely trigger a strong emotional response.
If you must, feel free to close this article and continue about your day.
However, the journalists who posted this content were literally murdered so that they would no longer bring these stories to the world. In solidarity, we are sharing these posts to amplify their voices and expose the horrors of genocide.
If you are willing, please don't look away.
Moaz Abu Taha, Independent Journalist
Mohammed Salama - Al Jazeera
Ahmed Abu Aziz, Independent Journalist
Hussam al-Masri, Reuters
Mariam Abu Daqqa, Associated Press
A Call to Action
We call on our readers to recognize that Palestinian liberation is bound up with our own fight for a world free from exploitation, militarism, and environmental destruction.
Another world is possible - but only through collective struggle that connects local organizing with international solidarity.
From Langley to Gaza, from the Fraser Valley to the West Bank, our struggles are one struggle.
Until Palestine is free, none of us are free.
In solidarity and struggle,
Rainer Fehrenbacher
Publisher, The Langley Union
References
Al Jazeera
Al Jazeera
Aude Dassonville
Alex Cosh