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A sixth person has been charged in connection with a protest at a private Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU) student group event involving Israeli soldiers last week, in which a group allegedly “forced entry” inside, Toronto police say.
A TMU student group called Students Supporting Israel at TMU said in social media posts last week that an off-campus event it organized involving Israeli Defense Forces soldiers was targeted. According to the international Students Supporting Israel organization website, the event was part of a larger U.S.-Canada tour, called Triggered: From Combat to Campus.
Around 1:15 p.m. on Nov. 5, officers attended a downtown building near Elm and Bay streets, where they allege protesters had damaged property and entered a common area where event attendees were gathered, Toronto police said in a news release Thursday.
One person was injured from broken glass during the forced entry and five protesters were arrested immediately following the incident, police said.
Investigators said they had arrested a sixth person from the protest group on Wednesday. A 26-year-old from Toronto is accused of shattering an interior glass door of the building and assaulting someone who tried to intervene. Police said the accused wore a mask during the incident.
That person now faces five charges, including forcible entry, assault and being “a member of an unlawful assembly while masked,” police said in the release. They were scheduled to appear in court Wednesday morning.
Another TMU student group, Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), said in a social media statement last week that students protesting the event “were grabbed, shoved, chased and thrown to the ground” by one of the soldiers.
An Israeli Defense Forces soldier is not facing any charges at this time, though videos have circulated on social media that appear to show him grabbing and pushing protesters out of the room.
Police confirmed in an email this week they have seen the video and they “encourage anyone who believes they may have been a victim of a crime to contact police and file a report” as the investigation remains ongoing.
TMU previously said it “condemns acts of aggression, intimidation, or violence” in a statement responding to the incident.