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A shock report published last week revealed that multiple Canadian arms manufacturers are directly involved in aerial attacks on the occupied Palestinian territories. Titled “It Takes a Village to Kill a Child,” the report focuses on the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter Program. It tracks the production of F-35 parts in Canada to specific cases of their use by Israeli forces in international crimes against Palestinians.
The 64-page-long report was produced in response to a call for input by Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. The group that authored the report, Researchers Against Genocide, is a working group of Science for the People Canada.
Canada is one of nine countries named as “development partners” in the F-35 program. As in other partner countries, companies in Canada have lucrative subcontracts to make parts for the fighter jet.
On January 15, 2025, the day after the report was published, the Prime Minister of Qatar announced a ceasefire agreement that took effect last Sunday. Casting doubt on the longevity of the ceasefire, the Israeli government has suggested that they have the support of the U.S. to resume their aggression after phase one of the agreement is completed in 42 days. This means that these F-35s could be a long way from their last use in this war.
The supply chain's “just-in-time” structure for parts and maintenance makes it “uniquely vulnerable to interruptions” according to the report. A quote from the American official in charge of F-35 production states that “a hiccup in the supply chain, whether it be a strike […] or a quality issue, becomes your single point of failure,” and that “any disruption in the logistical train will result in unusable aircraft very quickly.”
If such a strike were to take place, it wouldn't be the first time. During World War II, European communist resistance fighters working in armaments factories and in transport regularly used sabotage, both of machinery and of organizational functioning, to strike at the military capabilities of Hitler's regime. More recently, in February 2024 Indian port workers refused to handle weapons for the Israeli army.
Which companies are involved?
Israel was the first country to use the F-35 in combat, and used the fighters capable of carrying up to 18,000 pounds of explosives to carry out airstrikes on Gaza in 2021 and 2022. Since October 7, 2023, their use “has surged to over 5 times of normal operations, with 35–39 jets flying 2–4 sorties per day.” This heavy use has resulted in spare parts being rushed in from partner countries like Canada.
The report states that “Israel’s high tempo F-35 bombing campaign, in effect, can be seen as part of a marketing campaign for Lockheed Martin, which seeks to redeem the reputation of 'the most expensive weapon in the world' which only could get airborne half of the time.”
The research group highlights four “sole-source or critical suppliers” among the 110 Canadian companies which have participated in the development or production of the F-35. Among these, Gastops, “a small firm headquartered in Ottawa, ON, is particularly of note.”
Gastops is the sole producer in the world of the oil monitoring and fan blade health sensors used in the F-35, which are key components in maintaining the reliability of the warplanes. The Aerospace Industries Association of Canada emphasizes that “this is technology that nobody else has.” The value of the contracts awarded to Gastops for the F-35 exceeds $100 million, according to the report.
Citing Gastops documents highlighting the key “MetalSCAN” technology in maintenance of the fighters, the report concludes “that Gastops is the sole supplier of parts for the F-35 fighter jet that are crucial to maximizing flight time and reducing maintenance overhead cost, which has been critical to sustaining a bombing campaign of unprecedented intensity against the [occupied Palestinian territories].”
After Gastops, Researchers Against Genocide places Asco Aerospace under the microscope. The Swiss-owned company produces the largest components of the Israeli F-35s in Delta, B.C. These lightweight titanium wing bulkheads “are the spine and ribs of the F-35.” The report confirms that Asco-manufactured bulkheads were used in jets shipped to Israel in 2022 and 2023. Asco is one of only four companies worldwide which produces titanium F-35 bulkheads.
Magellan Winnipeg is the “largest Canadian structural supplier” for the warplane and “doing the largest volume of work on the F-35 in Canada.” Israel flies the F-35A variant, and “half of all horizontal tail fins for the F-35A worldwide are made by Magellan in Winnipeg.”
The last highlighted company, Héroux-Devtek of Quebec, reported first-quarter sales up 20% in 2024. It is likely profiting from “increased U.S. purchases in order to supply and repair landing gear for the Israeli F-35s in heavy rotation.” In a 2013 promotional video for Lockheed Martin, Héroux-Devtek's vice president of sales, Jean Gravel, implied that the Laval and Longueuil plants are likely supplying parts for the whole run of F-35s.
The research group cites the U.S. Government Accountability Office's reports that “when the jet breaks down, three-quarters of parts are sent back to the original manufacturer for repair,” implying that “Canadian factories are also likely doing repairs to the parts they export for end-use in Israel, considering Israel is currently conducting the heaviest aerial bombing campaign in its history.”
F-35s in action against Gaza civilians
Connecting the parts manufactured in Canada to Israeli war crimes, the report summarizes five separate attacks on three separate dates, providing full, detailed investigations of the attacks in the appendices. The report confirms the use of F-35s on civilians in four attacks: the 2021 airstrikes on the Taiba building and the Hanadi office tower and the 2022 airstrikes on the Palestine Tower and the area around the Abu Samra Mosque. These four indiscriminate attacks on non-military infrastructure caused high numbers of civilian casualties, including 12 children.
The worst attack by far was the July 2024 airstrikes against Al-Mawasi, a densely populated residential area in Khan Younis and an Israeli-designated “humanitarian zone.” The internally displaced Palestinians sheltering there had no warning before the strike hit them.
“At least three 2,000 lb bombs were dropped in quick succession, destroying a water source, food distribution site, market and tent camp, setting tents on fire, tearing victims to pieces, severing victims’ limbs and burying victims alive. 2,000 lb bombs will kill any person over an area spanning hundreds of meters from the blast site,” the report says.
Including the subsequent precise targeting of emergency response workers and survivors by smaller munitions and sniper drones, “[a]t least 141 Palestinians were killed in the attack, likely dozens of them women and children, and at least 300 more were wounded. 57 civilians killed in the attack were identified by name in open-source investigations, including at least one journalist, three emergency responders, eleven women and four children. A similar attack was repeated against the same ‘humanitarian zone’ on September 10th, 2024.”
The research group concludes that the above examples illustrate Israel's use of the F-35 fighters to commit violations of international law and of the fundamental rights of the Palestinian people. The implication of these violations is that “companies supplying critical parts of F-35 aircraft to Israel, directly or indirectly, and particularly sole-source suppliers of these parts, are therefore complicit in crimes against humanity, war crimes, and other grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions.”
Double standards
Article 4 of the Arms Trade Treaty has particularly significant legal implications. Entitled “Parts and Components,” it forces signatories such as Canada to “regulate the export of parts and components.” Canada could also be in violation of Article 11 on “Diversion” given that “[t]he Canadian government and private corporations are now fully aware that some of the parts they sell to Lockheed Martin for F-35s built in the U.S. are intended for end-use by Israel to commit war crimes.”
Since the 1960s, Canadian officials have known that about 50% of arms that the U.S. buys from Canada are shipped on to other countries. The U.S. is the main supplier of arms to Israel and the main buyer of Canadian arms components.
“It is incumbent on the government, corporations, unions and workers to ensure that components shipped from Canada do not end up in the weapons Israel is using to commit war crimes and crimes against humanity amounting to genocide,” says the research group.
There is a very recent precedent for possible action in this regard. Following Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Canada's government quickly moved to sanction Russia. It tightened sanctions over 60 times “to ensure no bolt or transistor makes its way into any Russian weapon.”
Two years into the war, Russian attacks had killed 10,582 civilians, including 545 children. In just over a year, Israel killed 17,000+ children. Even this unfathomable number is likely a significant undercount due to Israel's systematic dismantling of the Gazan healthcare system. Not one hospital has remained safe from aerial bombardment.
Two months into the invasion of Ukraine, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said it was “absolutely right” to call Russia's actions genocide. Yet, “Canadian companies continue to export weapons parts to Israel, maintaining its ability to carry out a campaign of mass slaughter plausibly amounting to genocide.” This despite an advisory ruling from the International Court of Justice, pleas from top genocide scholars and renowned human rights organizations.