Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said that Israeli military operations in the Palestinian Gaza Strip aimed at eliminating Hamas fighters there make achieving long-term stability in the region more difficult.

Trudeau added that the path to a "sustainable solution based on two states (Palestinian and Israeli)" becomes more difficult "with all the hardships that the Palestinians are going through."

Trudeau was speaking to journalists yesterday on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit in San Francisco, USA.

"Canada is very concerned about the number of civilian deaths in the Gaza Strip," the Canadian Prime Minister added.

Trudeau also repeated his call on Israel to show "the utmost restraint" when journalists asked him about this matter. He had used this phrase on Tuesday, which led Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to criticize him for these remarks.

Trudeau also said yesterday that during his conversation on Thursday with Benny Gantz, Israeli Defense Minister, he emphasized "Canada’s deep concern" over what the United Nations considers a "humanitarian disaster that will affect millions of people in the coming days and weeks," currently impacting large numbers of people in the Gaza Strip.

This conversation with Gantz came following Netanyahu's reaction to Tuesday’s statement in which the Canadian Prime Minister also urged Israel to stop "killing women, children, and infants" in the besieged Palestinian territory.

Trudeau also said yesterday that he has "chronic disagreements with Prime Minister (Israeli Benjamin) Netanyahu regarding the necessity of reaching a two-state solution and concerning our condemnation of (illegal Jewish) settlements," recalling that this has been Canadian policy towards the Middle East for a long time.

Trudeau also expressed his concern about "the angry reactions among Canadians" against each other since the outbreak of this new war between Israel and Hamas, specifically pointing to attacks on Jewish schools in Canada by nighttime shootings and to Islamophobic actions.

For his part, Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre said that Hamas will never accept a ceasefire and will continue its pursuit of "genocide" against Israelis while intensifying its "oppression of the Gaza population."

Poilievre, whose party forms the official opposition in the House of Commons, added that the Canadian government must take tougher measures against individuals linked to the Iranian regime in Canada, due to the ties between Tehran and Hamas, which Canada considers a "terrorist" organization.

The current war between Israel and Hamas, which broke out on October 7, is the deadliest between the two sides since the Islamist Palestinian movement took control of the Gaza Strip in 2007.

The Israeli government said that at least 1,200 Israelis were killed in the surprise Hamas attack that day, most of them civilians. Among the civilian dead are eight Canadians. The attackers took about 240 people hostage to the Gaza Strip, and Hamas has so far released four women among them for humanitarian reasons, it says.

In response, Israel has since that day been relentlessly bombing the Palestinian territory, and since October 27 has launched a ground operation aimed at "eliminating" Hamas which controls it.

The Israeli strikes on the Palestinian territory have caused about 12,000 deaths, two-thirds of them women and children, plus about 2,700 people who are missing, according to the Health Ministry in the Hamas government.