While there have been scuffles at protests, there have not been police or media reports in Toronto of anyone being physically attacked at their home for their position on Israel and Palestine.
However, that doesn’t mean it hasn’t happened.
An assault that occurred in July 2024 and left the victim briefly hospitalized is still working its way through the courts and may be nearing resolution. Beyond what was in an ambiguous police press release at the time, details of the case have not been reported elsewhere until now.
The incident took place in a residential area near Dupont Street and Symington Avenue in Toronto’s west end. After Israel began its bombing campaign following the Hamas attacks of Oct. 7, 2023, several residents there had put up “Davenport for Ceasefire” signs in their windows and on their lawns. On the streets, pro-Palestine and pro-Israel supporters had been putting up posters and spraying graffiti on telephone poles and elsewhere.
Derek, whose real name we are not publishing due to his safety concerns, had a pro-Palestine “Davenport for Ceasefire” sign in front of his house at that time, as did his neighbour.
Derek tells The Grind that on July 9, 2024, he had been “sitting on the porch at 11 p.m., in the dark, as I do at night, relaxing. And that’s when he showed up.”
The assault
Derek thought he saw a woman walking a dog and then a man coming onto the neighbour’s lawn to pick up dog poop. But then he realized the man was actually spray-painting the neighbour’s “Davenport for Ceasefire” sign with blue lines and putting a sticker on it, he tells The Grind.
Derek started recording video of the interaction on his phone.
Derek interrupted the stranger, who was wearing a mask, and asked him his name.
In Derek’s video, which was submitted to the Toronto police and was shared with The Grind, the man appears to say his name is “Abda.” The first name of the person who was arrested on Jul. 16, 2024, is Elly. Abda is a biblical name meaning servant or worshipper in Hebrew and Arabic.
The Grind visited the area on Aug. 2, 2024, and saw signs still up with blue spray-paint on them, and blue spray-paint used on telephone poles nearby as well.
In the video from Jul. 9, Derek then asks: “Why are you defacing our posters?”
Without responding, the man spray-paints the neighbour’s Palestinian flag, which was hanging at the front of their balcony. This is visible in the video.
The man then walked over to Derek, who was standing on the steps of his porch. The man can be seen in the video raising his hand and then there is the sound of spray paint being used. Derek says he was spray-painted in the face.
It was mostly aerosol left in the can at that point, Derek tells The Grind, but adds that “a little bit of spray paint” did get on his face.
The man then can be heard on video calling Derek a “fucking jerk-off.”
Derek responds “Oh, you fucker.” He says he then backed up some stairs and defended himself from the masked man.
The man then can be heard on video saying, “Come on, let’s go.” Derek says at that point the man started hitting him. A few seconds later, the man is heard on the video saying, “Fuck you up. Get in the fuckin’ house right now!”
“Hey, come on,” Derek responds.
As Derek describes it, the man then pulled out an expandable metal baton and came up the stairs towards him.
“He whacked me in the leg,” Derek says.
Expandable batons are illegal to use in public.
Two loud thuds can be heard in the video, and the man says, “Fucker.”
Derek responds: “C’mon, buddy.”
“Get in your fucking house,” the man says.
At this point, Derek recalls pushing the man off the porch, possibly with a chair. The man can be seen on the video walking off the property and down the street. The whole interaction lasted about 90 seconds.
“I looked down at my leg, and it was bleeding out,” Derek tells The Grind. “It was just like gushing blood. That shocked me.”
“I thought he broke my leg,” he adds. “I couldn’t feel anything.”
Derek then stumbled into the house and called for his wife. They called 911, and neighbours came out to support them.
Derek says he was taken to hospital in an ambulance and treated for a bleeding contusion on the shin, then released at 4 a.m. on crutches.
The Grind is not sharing the video as Derek and his family fear that the attacker or his supporters may target them again.
Suspect charged, case ongoing
Soon after the attack, a neighbour noticed stickers that Derek believes were left by the attacker, which included the name “undercovrjew_1” and an illustration. The neighbour looked the name up and found a pro-Israel Instagram account.
The neighbour, who also asked to remain anonymous due to safety concerns, tells The Grind they passed the information about the undercovrjew_1 sticker and Instagram account along to the police. Derek submitted his video to the police, and was interviewed by them on the night of the attack.
Derek recalls that when he saw the undercovrjew_1 account and rewatched the video, he thought the undercovrjew_1 logo was the same as on the hat of his attacker, but he adds that he wasn’t looking closely at the hat during the attack, so he isn’t completely sure.
A week after the attack, police arrested Elly Goldberg-Dassas and charged him with 10 charges total for eight different alleged crimes, including two counts of assault with a weapon (one for allegedly using an expandable baton, one for allegedly using spray paint as a weapon). He was also charged with one count of possessing a prohibited weapon without a licence (a switch blade knife) which police appear to have found on the day of his arrest, according to their press release and the court record. None of the charges against Goldberg-Dassas have been proven in court.
Goldberg-Dassas appears to also go by Elly Dassas. On his website, Dassas described himself as a photographer in the Canadian film and television industry and a members of I.A.T.S.E [International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees] 667 Guild, Elly shoots for the Canadian Film and Television Industry [sic].”
In December 2025, IATSE 667 sent an email to members, which was obtained by The Grind, stating that Dassas had “been expelled from the membership of IATSE 667 following the conclusion of the internal member disciplinary proceeding.” The union statement indicates they are unable to provide more information, but a source claims to The Grind that the expulsion was due to IATSE 667 being made aware of the alleged attack and the criminal charges.
The Grind requested comment from Goldberg-Dassas’ lawyer for this article, Bryan Badali of Lacy Naster LLP. Reached by phone, Naster indicated that “Mr. Goldberg-Dassas has no comment about your inquiries.”
Posts from undercovrjew_1 and undercovrjew_11
Before the July 2024 incident, the undercovrjew_1 account made posts critical of Toronto police for what the poster saw as the police being too light in handling pro-Palestinian protests.
The user also was frustrated with the Toronto police while trying to get them to investigate an incident where the poster alleged they were the victim of an antisemitic attack.
Another post advocated for people to “arm yourself” and included the message “kill them before they kill you” over an illustration of a Hamas militant.
One post appears to show “before” and “after” images where blue spraypaint had been used to cover up “Free Palestine” graffiti in a Toronto neighbourhood.
Many posts included a badge with an illustration of a boot stomping on a skull with a pool of red in the background and the words “Hamas Hunting Club, Happy Hunting.”
The Hamas Hunting Club badge has been used by Israel Defense Forces (IDF) soldiers in Gaza. As Israeli news outlet YNet Global reports, “A group of American citizens who serve in the IDF has gained world notoriety on social media and now in international press reports after posting demeaning photographs of detainees in Gaza. The group calling themselves ‘Hamas Hunting Club’ posted pictures of suspected terrorists detained by the IDF in Gaza, with their eyes covered and their hands bound, according to a report in the Daily Mail.”
The undercovrjew_1 account went offline at some point, and a newer account, undercovrjew_11 posts similar content in a similar style and the bio reads in part: “@undercovrjew_1 was Deactivated cuz I’m a Bear jew [sic].”
Both accounts have been supportive of the Israeli military, celebrated the deaths of Hamas and Hezbollah leaders, and posted videos of Palestinians in Gaza being assaulted and possibly tortured.
The old and new accounts have routinely posted more than 20 times a day about Israel’s military operations and Israeli politics, sometimes jointly posting with other like-minded Instagram users. Posts have mourned the deaths of Israelis killed on Oct. 7, 2023, celebrated the destruction of Gaza, called for the same to happen in the West Bank, and more.
undercovrjew_11 has on several occassions reposted content from right-wing Israel supporters, such as Toronto-based Meir Weinstein, who formerly led the Canadian branch of the militant Jewish Defence League and now leads the group Israel Now, which often counter-protests against pro-Palestine demonstrations. undercovrjew_11 has also included the logo of Betar in their posts. Betar is a right-wing Zionist youth movement which promotes Jewish militarism and Israel’s territorial expansion into other countries.
After messaging the undercovrjew_11 account on Jan. 7, 2024, to ask whether it was run by Elly Goldberg-Dassas, The Grind received no response and was blocked by the account later that day. The Grind has not been able to confirm who runs the account.
UPDATE, Feb. 26, 2026: Shortly after publication of this article, the undercovrjew_11 account on Instagram was deactivated.
Police press release and media ambiguity
The Toronto police’s press release about the alleged assault on Derek, published on July 18, 2024, described the events leading up to the attack as: “a man spray painted Palestinian and Pride flags displayed on residential properties,” and “a person observed the damage and tried to intervene.”
CityNews reported that “A Toronto man is facing 10 charges after he allegedly spray-painted Palestinian and Pride flags and then assaulted a bystander who tried to stop him.” It is unclear from this description whether the suspect was drawing flags or vandalizing them, and no mention is made of the political views of the suspect or victim.
The police press release was posted online after Goldberg-Dassas’ first scheduled court appearance. That meant that neither Derek nor the media had the information available to attend court to potentially see the suspect during that initial moment. Media outlets and members of the public could have followed the case at future court appearances, but, as of the publication of this article, no media outlets have published about the case beyond repeating what was in the police press release.
Toronto police did not respond to The Grind’s request for comment about their press release.
Other cases
When Toronto police arrested 11 suspects for vandalizing an Indigo bookstore in 2023, which caused no injuries, they announced the arrests in a press release six weeks before the suspects’ earliest court appearance.
Those arrests were covered continually by major national news outlets. Eventually, though, nine of the 11 accused had their charges dropped and the other two were given conditional discharges, even after the Toronto police involved 70 officers in the investigation.
Derek’s case has also received less attention than another 2024 incident which made national headlines.
In January 2024, Kenneth Jeewan Gobin allegedly got into an argument with a group of Jews walking near a Vaughan synagogue, spat towards them and made antisemitic comments praising Hitler’s genocidal actions. Gobin alleged that one person in the group called him a “dirty paki” while he was biking near them before the interaction. The judge said Gobin’s story wasn’t reliable, while the four victims’ stories aligned. Gobin, who had an existing criminal record, was found guilty of assault and was sentenced to 12 months in jail.
In Derek’s case, he says that people tend to be surprised when he tells them he was attacked by an allegedly pro-Israel individual.
“You know, people assume it is always the other camp for some reason,” he tells The Grind. “That just shows the tilted perspective that swirls around us so much in mass media.”
Derek says that he feels safe because of the support of neighbours and friends, including his Jewish friends.
Case nearing resolution
In Derek’s case, after over 15 appearances in court by Goldberg-Dassas’ legal representatives since the arrest, it appears the matter could soon go to resolution or a trial.
On Jan. 7, 2026, Goldberg-Dassas’ lawyer Badali appeared in court and provided an update that his client had undergone a forensic psychiatric evaluation in the previous month. The crown attorney on the case, Mark Rieger, is now reviewing the report, Badali told the court. On Feb. 26, the case will return.
At that point, Badali told the court, “the intention is that we’ll have a firm idea of whether this is going to the mental health diversion track, whether it’s remaining in the trial track, and if so whether we’re resolving or sending to trial.”
UPDATE, Feb 26, 2026: At the Feb. 26 court appearance, no decisions were taken and another court date was set for March 26. By that time, the court expects crown attorney Rieger will have reviewed the psychiatric evaluation.
With files from Emma Paling.