Canadian authorities have disrupted “four violent attacks against Jews” since the start of the Israel-Hamas conflict in 2023, says an intelligence report obtained by Global News that warns of continuing threats to the community.
A June 29 report by the federal government's Integrated Threat Assessment Center said each plot was inspired by the Islamic State, and a fifth involved “the disruption of a Canadian visiting Israel.”
While no such plots have been discovered so far this year, the report said Canada's Jewish population has been targeted since the US and Israel launched airstrikes on Iran on February 28.
“There has been an outbreak of harassment, threatening statements, and criminal incidents – such as assaults, arson and shootings – against Jewish communities in Canada, especially in the Greater Toronto Area since the Iran-US conflict began in February 2026,” it said.
Even if some of the incidents did not meet the “threshold” of terrorism, the investigation was ongoing and each incident nevertheless “contributes to the growth of insecurity and fear,” the report said.
Noted for Unclassified/Official Use Only, the report said “violent and dangerous threats against Jewish communities in Canada and the West are likely to continue at a sustained rate over the next six months.”
Iran-linked groups will also “continue to direct threats against Jewish communities – and US and Israeli interests – in Canada and the West,” it said.
But it also revealed a serious problem where acts of religious intolerance are so common that they create an atmosphere that fuels such violence.
“Over time, an environment where the targeting of the Jewish community as a group is frequent and normalized may have an impact on certain individuals who are vulnerable to violent means.”
It has a title Global Events and Inspiring Domestic Threats, A three-page strategic threat assessment report assessed whether Canada needs to raise its terrorism threat level.
It concluded that while some security threats have worsened, “particularly against the Jewish community,” the threat level should remain moderate, meaning that a terrorist attack is “a real possibility.”
It said the number of attacks on people in Canada has remained stable at one to three per year, and that the rising threats “have not been matched by an increase in the ability to display violence or attacks discovered.
Police tape outside a synagogue in Thornhill, Ont. hit by bullets following the start of the Iran war.
World News
The 2023 Hamas attack and Israeli military response unleashed a wave of anti-Semitism. Jewish community centers, synagogues, schools and businesses were the targets of shootings, arson, vandalism and threats.
On Wednesday, Statistics Canada released new figures showing that Jews were the victims of 71 per cent of religiously motivated hate crimes last year, up from 69 per cent in 2024.
Although StatCan said anti-Semitic crimes had dropped by 16 percent, the intelligence report said incidents had increased since the start of the US-Israeli war against Iran.
The Center for Israel and Jewish Affairs said the calls for violence heard on Canadian streets, the rise in hate crimes, disrupting ISIS programs and Iran-related activities are troubling.
“This is a poison that needs to be addressed,” CEO Noah Shack said in an interview Wednesday, after Toronto police arrested a pro-Palestinian protester on terrorism charges for alleged ties to Hamas.
Shack said he was concerned that Canada could experience an attack similar to the Dec. 14 mass shooting in Sydney, Australia, when pro-ISIS gunmen opened fire on a Jewish event, killing 15 people and wounding 40 others.
Emergency workers transport a person on a stretcher after a shooting at Bondi Beach in Sydney, Dec. 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Mark Baker).
“And now we're seeing Canadian authorities say four similar terrorist attacks inspired by the Islamic State almost happened right here in Canada,” Shack said.
“It is clear that this threat is still a bomb and we need to ensure that the people charged with preventing this attack and holding the perpetrators accountable have the resources they need to get the job done.”
There has been a “significant resurgence” of hate crimes against the Jewish community since the start of the Iran War, notably the shootings at three Toronto synagogues and the Montreal synagogue bombing, Shack said.
The Islamic Movement of the Companions of the Right (IMCR), allegedly linked to Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps Qods Force, claims responsibility for two shootings in Canada.
Alleged to be the Iraqi Shia militant group Kataib Hizballah, the group is suspected of contracting with local criminals to carry out attacks in Europe and North America. The FBI arrested the suspect in May.
According to the allegations filed in the US court, Mohammad Baqer Saad Dawood Al-Saadi boasted that he was the one responsible for the attack in Toronto – shooting at the synagogue and the US Consulate.
Toronto police have arrested several gunmen suspected of being part of a network hired to open fire on the American embassy. Canadian authorities have not linked the incidents to Iran.
Integrated Threat Assessment Center
According to the ITAC report, 83 percent of attacks “planned or requested” by IMCR targeted Israeli interests or the Jewish community, but both in Canada “should no longer be definitively linked” to the group.
The recent collapse of the cease-fire agreement between the US and Iran has raised concerns that more violence like this may be coming in the West.
Although the intelligence report finds that the threats do not justify raising Canada's terrorism threat level, the former national security official was not impressed with the analysis.
Former RCMP assistant commissioner Ches Parsons, who reviewed the report for Global News, said it underestimated “the scale and urgency of the real threat through narrow definitions, selective metrics, and defensive language.”
By separating extremism from hate crime and other crimes, the document created a “statistical firewall” that mitigated the problem, said Parsons, the RCMP's former director general of national security.
“This is not a strict threat assessment; it is a form of containment that protects the status quo,” he said, describing the gap between the report's conclusions and the reality of the Jewish community as “glaring.”
“By maintaining the same level of threat in an era that is widely described by civil society organizations and independent reports as a national crisis of anti-Semitism … it risks presenting a clean vision that falls behind the accumulated evidence of radicalization and the destruction of public safety confidence.”
The report follows an April 2 document, also obtained by Global News, that said Iran's intelligence services may be using local criminal groups to attack “Jewish community targets” in Canada.
The RCMP's March 2026 threat assessment released to Global News on July 9 also stated that IMCR wanted to attack Europe, but the 10-page report was revised otherwise.
