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* Note: This article appeared as part of a multi-account diary published first on Socialist Worker Online (link) The article below contains a number of photographs to illustrate the story unavailable at the time of original publishing.
July 15th, 4:00 pm
As our bus waited outside the gates of the Egyptian side of the Rafah border crossing, a crowd began to gather around our bus. Around 50 people were camped out on the side of the road, some holding their infant children. We hung our Palestinian flags out the windows and chanted, “Long Live Palestine!”
s people shouted at us, mostly in Arabic, we learned a bit about their purpose at this crossing. One woman holding her baby boy and surrounded by two other children shouted, “I have been here for 13 days, please let me in with you.” Another man held his American passport, bags in hand, begging us to let him on the bus.
A woman and her children waiting to enter Gaza at the Rafah border crossing.
A group of protesters blocked our path through the border gate, holding a big yellow banner with “End the Siege” written in English and Arabic. People outside and on our bus wept. Many of these people have been trying to get through the border for months, to see their families or to deliver aid.
After navigating through the gate, we entered Egyptian customs, which would turn out to be a 6 hour affair, a delay just long enough to push our entrance into Gaza out of the media friendly daylight hours.
Immediately, we were confronted with a stark fact of life for Palestinians traveling in and out of Gaza. Along the northern wall of the waiting area a middle-aged man sat slumped over in a light blue hospital gown. An IV dangled from his arm, the bag laying on the floor between his legs. A couple of us approached him to offer help and find out what he was doing there.
This man had just been released from a hospital in Cairo from kidney surgery, a procedure ruled necessary by the Egyptian authorities, so he was allowed out of Gaza to have the procedure with his son at his side. However, the Egyptian border police refused entry for his son, and so the man limped in sandals and a hospital gown, noticeably disoriented, into customs where he now sit, unattended to, waiting for entry back into Gaza.
Video of man sitting in customs station and Viva Palestina convoy members delivering the wheelchair: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHFA5nv-HbI
Our first delivery of medical aid to the people of Gaza was one brand new wheelchair to a man recovering from surgery, alone, in an Egyptian customs waiting room. After the fuss, of course, the man was promptly given a wheel chair by customs officials and spirited across the border and out of sight.
A crowd of people waiting to enter Gaza gathers around our bus
Back when our bus backed pulled through the second gate (the first was blocked by protesters) the riot police fought people away from our bus, shoving a young woman and her child. As the scene unfolded, Raja, a Palestinian man from our delegation cried out, “Oh Gaza! Oh Gaza!” as he wept.
For most of the trip, it was better that we did not weep for Gaza, that we did not show our sadness. The people of Gaza, and the Palestinians for that matter, don’t need our pity. There is plenty of that to go around. We came to bring aid, but more importantly our presence is proof that the siege, one of the most brutal blockade and sanction regimens in modern history, can be broken. We came to show that Americans care about Palestinians, that when President Obama calls the conditions in Gaza “intolerable”, some Americans refuse to tolerate it, even if Mr. Obama will.
After weeping along side Raja for those short moments on the bus, I smiled again, I focused on the people, on their stories and their lives. I opened my heart to the people of Gaza for the paltry 24 hours we were allowed by the Egyptian authorities. But when I asked about the January assault and saw the anguish in their eyes, the intensity of their memories, I thought to myself, “Oh Gaza! Oh Gaza!”
Tags: Galloway, Gaza, gaza strip, Palestine, Rafah, Viva Palestina
6:59 pm. Viva Palestina.
