Several dozens of activists from various nationalities, including Spaniards, who intended to participate in the international march to Gaza to have been held on the Egyptian border, transferred from their hotels back to the airport of Cairo or directly expelled from the country, denounced Efe coordinators of the mobilization.
According to EFE in anonymity, at least about 35 people, among which there are several Spanish and Spanish, have been held at the Cairo airport, while a non -determined number has been taken back to the airfield by the police from the hotels where they were staying in the Egyptian capital.
Yesterday, the Egyptian security forces reported the arrest of more than one hundred activists who had planned to participate in the international march to Gaza, a mobilization that aims to reach the Egyptian side of the Rafah’s crossing that pretty with the Gaza Strip, despite the fact that Egypt has not authorized the concentration. Most of those detainees were French, but there were also Algerians, Moroccans and Libyans.
So far, Egypt has not officially reacted to this information.
The spokeswoman for the French delegation of the international march to Gaza, Catherine Le Scolan-Quéré, said in a message in the group of the delegation, to which Efe had access, that “several French citizens” have been arrested in their hotels and “others, at the airport of Cairo.” Egypt already assured Wednesday that it is necessary to “obtain a previous approval” for the march and that it will only allow that to happen if “the official channels” are followed.
“In the light of the recent requests and consultations on the visits of foreign delegations to the border area adjacent to Gaza (the city of Al Arish and the Rafah’s crossing) to express its support for Palestinian rights, Egypt affirms the need to obtain prior approval for these visits,” the Foreign Ministry said in a statement, in which it was its first official reaction to this call.
The Arab country insisted that the only way in which it will accept a mobilization is that it be done “following the regulatory measures and mechanisms established from the beginning of the war in Gaza”, in October 2023. That consists in “presenting an official application to the Egyptian embassies abroad, or through requests presented by foreign embassies in Cairo or representatives of organizations to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Organized numerous visits from foreign delegations, both governmental and NGOs, “he said.
The organizers of the so -called world march to Gaza, an international mobilization of several organizations that seeks to break the Israeli block for humanitarian aid for the Palestinian enclave, also admitted on Wednesday not having received any official Egyptian official response to their order.
Your goal
According to the organizers, some 4,000 people are expected to participate in the mobilization, which plans to concentrate today in Cairo and leave tomorrow 13 in a convoy from Cairo to the city of Al Arish, capital of the north of the Sinai. Then they intend to walk three days to Rafah, where another 72 hours will camp on the border, from which they will return again to the Egyptian capital.
The north of Sinai is forbidden territory for foreigners, who can only access with express permission from the authorities. Cairo says that he takes this measure for security reasons, given the growth of jihadist groups in the area in recent years.
Yesterday Wednesday, the Spanish embassy in Cairo warned that the march is not authorized by the Egyptian authorities and recalled that participating in a demonstration in the Arab country without being previously authorized means “a punishable infraction.”
This global march, like the Fleetilla of Freedom intercepted by the Israeli authorities last Monday, denounce the blockade imposed by Israel to access basic goods (such as food, food or fuel) to the enclave.
On March 2, Israel launched a total blockade at the entrance of humanitarian aid to the Palestinian enclave, only broken by the entrance of a few trucks loaded, mostly, with flour and other foods. Nor should we forget that the siege imposed on the Palestinian coastal strip for Israel has been complemented since Hamas won the elections by the various Egyptian authorities that, except for a certain fat eye in the tunnels of the militia and the administrative coordination for the exit of civilians has not allowed the regular entry of goods to Gaza.
