More than a hundred names of Palestinian children killed by the State of Israel have been crossed off a memorial on Trent University’s Faryon Bridge.

Arthur responded to a tip Tuesday night to find that the memorial, dedicated to more than 14,500 Gazan children killed by Israel as part of their continuing genocide of the Palestinian territories in the Gaza Strip, had been vandalized with pro-Israeli slogans.

Dozens of names have been crossed out, and countless more obscured by chalked phrases reading “RELEASE HOSTAGES [sic]” and crude drawings of Stars of David and yellow ribbons.

Many of the pre-existing slogans on the bridge have also been defaced. A slogan which reads “4 years old, deprived of the joys of preschool” had each of its words individually chalked through, and others such as “NOT IN MY NAME!”—a common refrain amongst Jewish anti-Zionists—have been chalked over as part of the sloganeering.

Even messages which are not directly pro-Palestinian have been subject to defacement. A large message with reads “Truth and Reconciliation ❤” has had “RELEASE HOSTAGES” again scrawled over it, as has another message elsewhere on the bridge about the rate of incidences of intimate partner violence experienced by women.

Elsewhere still, messages on the memorial have been amended to reflect pro-Israeli sympathies, such as a slogan which read “WE WILL NEVER FORGET” being changed to read “WE WILL NEVER FORGET [ISRAEL]”

The Faryon Bridge memorial was first established by Students 4 Palestine (S4P) Trent in May of 2024, as part of a vigil to memorialize the then-some 14,500 children killed by the Israeli military in Gaza. S4P continually held vigils, sit-ins, and re-chalked children’s names on the bridge throughout the 2024–2025 academic year.

According to a joint report by Oxfam and Action on Armed Violence, the Israeli military has murdered more women and children since October 2023 than have been killed in any other conflict in the past two decades. In the most recent official 1,516-page death report released by the health ministry in Gaza, the names of children exclusively comprise the first 400 pages.

As part of the vigil, S4P also renamed the bridge “Alareer Bridge,” in honour of Dr. Refaat Alareer, a Palestinian writer, poet, and professor at the Islamic University in Gaza who was killed in a targeted Israeli airstrike in December 2024.

The defacement of the bridge memorial comes at a turning point in the broader arc of Israel’s military operations in Gaza since October 7th, 2023. Experts with the United Nations and other non-governmental organizations warn of large-scale famine in the Gaza strip as Israel continues to block access to huminatarian aid into Gaza.

As the start of the academic year rapidly approaches, Palestinian students report being unable to leave the Gaza strip despite having received acceptance at Canadian universities. Trent’s own Dr. Aaron Shafer, from the department of forensic science, is among a group of Canadian academics currently working with the group Palestinian Students and Scholars at Risk to try and bring students from Gaza to Canada.

While Canada has historically expedited the visa process for students coming from conflict zones in Ukraine and Syria, Shafer notes that the government has failed to do the same for Palestinian students.

“I am aware of some students who have had their biometrics since 2023 and are still waiting for it to be processed,” he told CTV News. “They could be on a plane tomorrow and in a lab if the Canadian government could process their visas.”

Meanwhile, many governments and news outlets are for the first time shifting their rhetoric to decry the scale and violence of Israeli’s ongoing military operations, and to acknowledge the extremity of the genocide in Palestine.

Last week Prime Minister Mark Carney followed the leaders of both France and the United Kingdom in announcing Canada’s formal intent to recognize a Palestinian State at the United Nations General Assembly in September 2025; though he reaffirmed his government’s commitment to a two-state solution.

Shortly thereafter, Peterborough MP Emma Harrison posted a video to her Instagram account saying she had “been trying to find the right words…as a mother, human being and now as you member of parliament,” adding that “no one deserves what’s happening in Gaza.”

A statement attached to the post reads “With each passing day, I continue to be horrified by what I see. As a mother, it pains me to think about children starving. As a human being, the ongoing pain and devastation are unbearable.”

Harrison’s statement continues, saying she “unequivocally support[s] an immediate ceasefire and access to humanitarian aid,” while reaffirming the Carney government’s call for a conditional two-state solution, which her statement says she believes can build “a just and meaningful peace in the region, one that respects the dignity and humanity of all people.”

Arthur has reached out to Trent University for comment.