Egyptian authorities have given permission for 100 members of a 1,300-member protest group to enter the Gaza strip after days of demonstrations and hunger strikes. And an aid convoy has been rerouted through Jordan and Syria.
Protesters from more than 40 countries came to the Egyptian capital, Cairo, aiming to reach the Palestinian enclave via Egypt’s Rafah border crossing.
The organisers aim to draw attention to Israel’s blockade of Gaza one year after its offensive on the territory.
Egyptian authorities initially refused to allow any of the protesters to cross the border for a planned support march.
Medea Benjamin, of Code Pink which has helped organise the protest, has mixed feelings about the Egyptian decision.
“I think it’s a divisive strategy to split us up,” she told RFI. “It’s also positive that 100 people got to go in, rather than zero.”
Among those who will go are “Palestinians who are desperate to see their familes and journalists who have a problem getting in and want to get the word out on the anniversary of the invasion”, she says.
And she slammed the Egyptian government’s policy of keeping the border partially closed as “a policy that goes against the wishes of the majority of people in Egypt”.
Meanwhile, the Viva Palestina aid convoy led by British MP George Galloway has arrived in the Jordanian capital, Amman, after Egypt refused to allow it entry through the port of Nuweibeh.
Instead it will go to Syria, where it will load its cargo onto a ship at the Mediterranean port of Latakia. Then it will for to the port of El Arish, where Egypt receives aid to Gaza.
