Activists, politicians protest for permission to send aid to Gaza: ‘You want us to forget them’

Activists, politicians and public figures held a small protest on Monday outside the Foreign Ministry in Cairo to demand permission to bring aid into Gaza without conditions, and for activists to be allowed to accompany the aid convoys.

The protest lasted for 15 minutes before it was broken up by police guarding the ministry.

The campaign group involves hundreds of doctors and public figures who are organizing to get the ministry’s approval to bring essential aid into the strip that has accumulated on the Egyptian side of the border, due to what they described as the Occupation’s “war of starvation” on Palestinians. 

Although aid deliveries arrive at Arish International Airport, they are trickling too slowly into Gaza for the almost 1.5 million internaly displaced Palestinians in dire need of humanitarian aid. Trucks of aid have been held up at the Rafah and the Awja border crossings for hours at a time by security checks imposed by Israel, and the aid trucks have queued into North Sinai.

Representatives of the campaigners who protested on Monday called on the ministry to facilitate the volunteers’ task by providing media coverage of the convoy and allowing international public figures to participate in solidarity with the Palestinian cause.

The ministry had agreed to meet them at first before ultimately canceling a meeting scheduled for last Tuesday, without offering an alternative date, former Doctors Syndicate secretary general Mona Mina, one of the campaign coordinators, told Mada Masr.

“We demanded more than once to meet the foreign minister or any ministry official to allow us to deliver aid into Gaza at our own risk. Today, after over a month, we still didn’t get any response,” Mina said in a video recorded at the protest.

Alongside Mina, members of the Socialist Popular Alliance Party, the Bread and Freedom Party and the Dignity Party participated in the protest, including the latter party’s founder and former presidential candidate Hamdeen Sabahi, in addition to public figures such as human rights lawyer Ragia Omran and the former member of the National Council for Human Rights Gamal Fahmy.

A similar flash protest demanding a stronger role from Egypt in helping Palestinians of the Gaza Strip was held by women in downtown Cairo on March 8, coinciding with International Women’s Day. It lasted 30 minutes before it was dispersed by the police.

Likewise, authorities did not grant foreign activists cooperating with the Journalists Syndicate permission to travel to the crossing as part of the Global Conscience Convoy initiative in November. Unable to obtain security permits, the organizers postponed the convoy indefinitely, with four of the foreign activists expelled from Egypt after protesting for permission outside the Foreign Ministry in Cairo.

A rare protest was held outside the Rafah border crossing on Friday, with volunteers from the National Alliance for Civil Development Work, a coalition of civil society groups subject to stringent security checks, staged a demonstration outside the Rafah crossing on Friday calling for the passage of aid into Gaza.

“Raise your voice and let it get there, we want our aid to get there,” they chanted, though it was unclear to whom the demands were directed. Most state-owned outlets covered the demonstration.

Access to the area surrounding the Rafah crossing has been restricted to officially authorized persons.

Celebrities, influencers and international officials have been granted visits to the crossing, including the UN secretary general, who also called for the speedier flow of aid supplies delivered into the strip while there.