Members of Hillel BC and several student associations gathered at Hillel House before walking over to the Nest to call for the release of Israeli hostages as part of a global campaign to “Bring Them Home,” with similar rallies organized in Montreal and Toronto.
The rally was organized by Hillel BC and supported by the Jewish Student Association, Israel On Campus, the Chabad Jewish Student Centre of Vancouver, the Alpha Epsilon Pi fraternity and the Allard Jewish Law Student Association.
According to Hillel BC's statement to The Ubyssey, the rally’s “sole purpose is to raise awareness about and demand the unconditional release of the 239 hostages confirmed to have been kidnapped by Hamas.”
Israel formally declared war following Hamas’ October 7 attack and called for a “complete siege” of Gaza. Since October 7, around 1,400 Israelis and over 9,000 Palestinians have been killed, according to the latest UN numbers.
Historically, hostages have been used in prisoner swaps by Hamas. In the past week, the families of some hostages called on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, to swap the hostages for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails. Netanyahu's official Facebook account released a statement saying Israel will “exhaust every possibility to bring them home,” but did not commit to any prisoner swap.
At the Wednesday protest, the crowd held posters in a line with the faces, ages and nationalities of hostages. The crowd called on hostages to be released and rallied around the cry “bring them home.”
Hillel BC wrote the rally was a way for the Jewish community and its allies “to speak up for the hostages that cannot speak for themselves.”