Egypt detains nearly 200 foreigners who flew in to join Gaza march
Egyptian authorities have detained and questioned more than 200 people who arrived in Cairo to participate in the Global March to Gaza, an international action intended to break Israel’s siege on the territory, the organisers said on Thursday.
According to the march organisers, some 4000 people from over 40 countries had booked flights to Cairo, with many already arriving ahead of the planned march.
The activists had flown to Cairo to join a grassroots land convoy which set off from the Tunisian capital on Monday in the hopes of reaching Egypt’s Rafah border with Gaza as a “symbolic act” to spotlight Israel’s crippling 18-year siege on the territory.
Thousands of volunteers from Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco and Tunisia left the Tunisian capital in a 100-vehicle convoy to raise international awareness of the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and deliver life-saving aid, organisers said. An online tracker shows that they are in the Libyan city of Misrata as of Thursday afternoon.
They also said that the Egyptian government has yet to officially respond to their request for permission to proceed with the march but that they are planning to proceed with it anyway.
