For more than 10 days activists have been demonstrating in solidarity with Gaza, reports Reem Leila "Off to Gaza we go, martyrs by the million"; "Stop the siege now"; "Freedom for Gaza"; "No wall": so ran the chants of banner-waving activists in different parts of Cairo over the last few weeks. Events in Gaza over the past year have driven more than 1,300 activists from 42 countries onto Egypt's streets in a display of anger against Israeli policies. On New Year's Eve, the anniversary of last year's 22-day Israeli attack on Gaza that left more than 1,400 Palestinians dead, activists had planned to join with Gazans on a three-mile, non-violent march. At the same time people in many countries around the world had been urged to hold their own local demonstrations and vigils. International activists, who arrived in Egypt during the last week of December, joined Egyptian protesters in the streets of Cairo to voice their anger at Israeli actions and the Egyptian government's response to the crisis. Those taking part in the Gaza Freedom March (GFM) gathered in front of the French, Italian, American and Israeli embassies and in downtown Cairo to demand Egypt open the border between Gaza and Egypt. Hunger strikes were also staged in front of the Press Syndicate to protest against Egypt's refusal to allow marchers to cross into Gaza. "What is the Egyptian government afraid of? Do we look like criminals? We want to bring humanitarian aid to the people of Gaza, who have been suffering terribly for years at the hands of the Israeli occupation. This has to end," said Hedy Epstein, a GFM delegate, on the 10th day of protests. Epstein was among 200 foreign protesters from Palestinian solidarity groups and the American anti-war movement who gathered on the steps of the Press Syndicate. International activists joined more than 70 members of the 6 April Youth Movement in a demonstration on 4 January outside Cairo's prosecutor-general's office. "We are here to express our opposition to the wall and the siege of Gaza," 6 April activist Mohamed Sami told Al-Ahram Weekly. Two days earlier Moufid Shehab, minister of state for legal and parliamentary affairs, had announced that "engineering works" on Egypt's border with Gaza -- understood to be a reference to the underground barrier Egypt is constructing -- "are necessary to secure the border" and "protect Egypt, its land and people". Sami ripostes that "sovereignty is bigger than any wall". He went on to criticise the Egyptian government for "standing against the Palestinian people". British activist Yvonne Ridley, one of the 1,300 international activists who have been in Egypt since the last week of December said that $20,000 in aid had been taken to Gaza with a delegation of 86 people who arrived in the Strip on 29 December after some members of the GFM approached Mrs Suzanne Mubarak. GFM spokesman Ziyad Lunat stresses that the group which had crossed into the Strip "were not going in GFM's name". "The individuals who went are mostly Palestinians who have family in Gaza," said Lunat. The Palestinian cause, which once unified Egyptians, Arabs and international activists, is now fractured. According to sociologist Qadri Hefni, the regime, political parties and ordinary people are all against the Israeli assaults "but the regime is also against Hamas and favours Mahmoud Abbas while the Muslim Brotherhood supports Hamas. The public gets confused." Hefni believes the Egyptian government has the right to build underground barriers and insists that "nothing more can be done." "We have our own domestic problems to take care of," he argues. MP Mohamed Abdel-Fattah Omar believes people attacking Egypt's response to the crisis know very well that the regime is exerting every effort to solve the problem. "Those who insult Egypt understand nothing. They cannot do more than what Egypt is already doing. Egypt has every right to protect its borders by whatever means that suit the country's circumstances. It is Egypt's national security that we are talking about." A Foreign Ministry press release stated that Egypt had opened the Rafah crossing to allow humanitarian aid to reach Gaza as soon as possible. Foreign Ministry spokesman Hossam Zaki insists that any problems at the crossing originate on the Gaza side of the border. According to Zaki, many of the protesting foreign activists "entered Egypt on tourist visas and started organising demonstrations, protests and hunger strikes in violation of Egyptian laws". "Egypt has never closed the Rafah crossing," says Zaki. "On the contrary, Egypt has received more than 100 sick Palestinians who are being treated at Egyptian hospitals." As demonstrators protested in Cairo the Viva Palestina convoy, which Egypt had denied entry into Egypt via the Red Sea port of Nuweiba, arrived in Arish and will cross into Gaza at Rafah.
