On the night of June 29, the Scotiabank branch at College St. West and Grace St. in Little Italy had its front door and front windows smashed. Messages were written in black marker: “Scotiabank funds genocide,” “Free Palestine,” “Divest,” and “This is for Gaza.”
The outer windows, which were broken, lead to the area with ATMs. The windows and doors beyond the ATMs leading to the interior of the branch were not smashed. It does not appear that the people responsible went into the building.
Repair crews were there the next day boarding up the windows with plywood.
Three other branches in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area (GTHA) have been targeted since.
In the early morning of July 18, the branch at Gerrard St. East and Broadview Ave. near East Chinatown was vandalized, according to photos posted by the Instagram account directactionott. (The header photo for this article is of that branch.)
The windows of the front doors were smashed and red paint was splattered all over the entrance and other street-facing windows.
On July 30, the Scotiabank at Dundas St. W. and Brock Ave. was targeted. The glass front door and two other windows were boarded up. No messages were visible by the time The Grind visited the site.
A message supposedly from those responsible was submitted to directactionott and posted to the Instagram account. They said they were calling out the bank because “Scotiabank continues to invest in weapons companies facilitating this genocidal, colonial violence, and our government issues hollow, equivocating statements while arming and funding the zionist settler state,” referring to Israel.
The police have not issued press releases about the vandalisms, but after they were asked about the Gerrard St. case by TorontoToday.ca they said they were investigating.
Most recently, the Westdale branch in Hamilton on King St. West was targeted, as seen in a video posted by directactionott on Instagram on August 5. Red graffiti reads “DROP ELBIT,” “GAZA IS STARVING,” and two red triangles were drawn. The video ends with someone throwing a brick at the front door.
Since before Oct. 7, 2023, Ekō (formerly SumOfUs) and Just Peace Advocates were calling on Scotiabank to divest from Elbit Systems due to its connections to Israel’s human rights abuses. Scotiabank was then the largest foreign shareholder in Elbit, with a stake of about US$500 million. The shares are held by Scotiabank’s subsidiary 1832 Asset Management and are largely attributable to fund manager David Fingold.
Elbit is Israel’s largest supplier of weapons. They make MPR 500-pound bombs (similar in explosive power to 2,000-pound bombs made in the U.S.) that are used to destroy entire buildings in Gaza.
Elbit also makes drones which are sometimes armed with machine guns or rocket launchers.
Palestinians in Gaza say drones have lured them out of their homes by playing the sounds of babies crying, and only to shoot them once they go outside.
Children also report being shot by Israeli drones after being bombed. A U.K. doctor described treating these wounds on children: “The bullets that the drones fire are these small cuboid pellets and I fished a number of those out of the abdomen of small children. I think the youngest I operated on was a three-year-old.”
An Elbit Hermes 450 drone was used on Apr. 1, 2024, to attack three World Central Kitchen vehicles, killing seven aid workers, including Canadian-American dual citizen Jacob Flickinger, according to Haaretz.
In November 2023, the Scotiabank Giller Prize ceremony, a literary award funded by the bank, was disrupted by protesters denouncing the bank’s investment in Elbit.
Since then, the No Arms In The Arts campaign was established and has worked to — among other aims — pressure institutions like Scotiabank to divest from Elbit. Other groups pressuring Scotiabank include: World Beyond War Canada, Jews Say No to Genocide, and ScotiaBank Funds Genocide.
Scotiabank reduced its stake in Elbit Systems by around three quarters by September 2024, then increased it slightly in 2025. Today, Scotiabank remains one of the largest shareholders in the weapons-maker. And Elbit’s share price has more than doubled since October 2023.
The Grind asked Scotiabank about the effect on branch staff and operations, whether suspects have been identified, and whether they have any comment on their investments in Elbit systems and other companies involved in the genocide. Scotiabank did not respond.
