An Israeli citizen was shot dead in Montreal near a kosher restaurant and Chabad house, and a police officer was also killed in the exchange of fire. But much of the coverage in Canadian media has focused on a reported manifesto left by the gunman, which authorities and experts say reflected anti-feminist incel ideology and hatred of women.
Israel’s Consulate General in Montreal confirmed to the newspaper La Presse that the Israeli victim in the shooting near the Hilton hotel was Michael Moshe Mizrahi, 68.
The scene of the shooting in Montreal
(Video: Tzipi Zeigerman)
“He was a beloved member of Montreal’s Jewish community,” the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs said in a statement. “Our thoughts and deepest condolences are with his family, friends and loved ones during this difficult time of unimaginable grief.”
Israeli and Jewish community sources later said Mizrahi’s family and members of the local Chabad Hebrew-speaking community endured hours without clear information about his fate. According to those sources, Mizrahi may have been mistakenly identified as one of the attackers and shot by a police officer, then remained at the scene after being critically wounded. Canadian authorities have not publicly confirmed those details.
The shooting also killed Montreal police officer Mohammed Lamine Benredouane, who had served in the city’s police force since 2021. Local police said his death was “a great loss to our organization.”
“His sense of duty, dedication and professionalism will remain forever etched in our memory,” police said.
The shooting took place in the Côte-des-Neiges district of Montreal, a neighborhood that includes a large Jewish population. The incident unfolded near a supermarket, a kosher restaurant and a Chabad house, though the motive remains unclear.
In addition to the officer who was killed, another police officer was seriously wounded. The shooter was killed at the scene. The incident occurred as Canada is hosting World Cup matches alongside the United States and Mexico.
ZAKA said it was working to bring Mizrahi to burial in Israel. Moishy Bloch, a ZAKA volunteer from the organization’s international unit and a Montreal resident who was at the scene, described hours of uncertainty.
“These were long hours of uncertainty,” he said. “I walked around the scene with the deceased’s son and between the various officials to understand what had happened to his father. Only after a long time did we receive the official confirmation that he had been killed at the scene.”
Canadian media reported that the gunman left behind a manifesto of about 100 pages, which suggested he had adopted incel ideology. According to the reports, the manifesto obtained by Montreal police expressed concern over male loneliness and blamed women’s sexual liberation for it. The same anti-feminist ideology has been cited in several attacks around the world in recent years, including the 2018 attack in Toronto.
Although the gunman did not explicitly state in the manifesto that he belonged to the movement, La Presse quoted Mélissa Blais, a sociology professor at a university in Quebec, as saying that “the vocabulary and ideas that appear in it are faithful to incel philosophy.”
The manifesto reportedly referred to the concept of “hypergamy,” the idea that women seek men who are taller, wealthier and more successful, and included expressions of romantic and sexual rejection.
It also argued that men in the West suffer from loneliness and social isolation, and pointed, among other things, to women’s sexual liberation as a cause. The manifesto also attacked the pornography industry and capitalism. According to Blais, the proposed solution was political. “This is a clear call for armed struggle,” she said.
The manifesto reportedly called for rebellion against police forces, which it described as corrupt, even at the cost of combat deaths. Videos from the scene showed security forces charging with weapons drawn toward a local branch of the Supermarché PA supermarket chain.
Several hours after the shooting, Montreal police chief Fady Dagher said at a news conference that police had been called to the scene after a passerby reported hearing gunfire and seeing the barrel of a rifle protruding from a window. Dagher said the shooter’s motive was still unknown.
Rabbi Chaim Shlomo Cohen, a Chabad emissary in Montreal, told ynet earlier that the shooting was directed at a building near the Chabad house.
“The shooting was toward a building close to the Chabad house. They fired from the hotel at another building,” he said. Cohen said Canadian police evacuated people from nearby hotels into the Chabad house.
“I was sitting in my office, and suddenly police officers came in and said no one was allowed to leave the building, and evacuated people from hotels to us,” he said.
A witness named Brandon, who lives nearby, told Canada’s CTV that he heard “10 or 12 shots in a row.”
“Parents and children ran from the park in panic,” he said. “We are all in complete shock that this is happening in our neighborhood, which is usually quiet. We are surrounded by schools. It is usually a very family-oriented area.”
First published: 08:24, 06.23.26