Demonstrations and protests against the Israeli war on the Gaza Strip went on across Egypt yesterday hours before Israel announced the ceasefire. In Gharbia, the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) group staged an hour-long demonstration in the city of Kafr el-Zayyat attended by some 1,500 local children. They criticized the war on Gaza raising the Palestinian flag. At the end of the demonstration, a child delivered a speech in which he voiced some of the protesters' demands, such as opening the Rafah border crossing quickly and forever, cutting gas exports to Israel, and expelling the Israeli ambassador from Cairo. He also called on children all over the world to continue supporting the oppressed in Gaza. The MB also staged another demonstration in the village of Qaranshu (Bassiun province) attended by some 1,500 local residents. In Menya, the first meeting of NGOs deplored the Israeli invasion of the Gaza Strip and the continuous bombardments of hospitals, schools and residential areas. The participants decided to organize a donation campaign by opening a bank account and holding meetings in villages to explain Egypt's fundamental role in supporting the Palestinian Cause over the past years. They also called for opening the border crossings, expelling the Israeli ambassador from Cairo and withdrawing his Egyptian counterpart from Tel Aviv. In Suez, MB MP Saad Khalifa led a demonstration joined by some 4,000 supporters of the MB. They chanted slogans against the carnage of women and children in Gaza. In Fayoum, the committee of al-Ahrar Party in the governorate held a popular convention attended by the representatives of al-Wafd and the Tagammu parties as well as the MB. At the end of the convention, a statement was issued expressing the participants' deep sorrow at Israel's brutal attacks against the Palestinian people in Gaza which left an extremely high number of victims. The party committee chairman Mahmoud Yasser Ramadan said he regretted seeing no reaction apart from condemnations. He also affirmed that what Israel wanted was to thwart the Palestinian Cause by involving Egypt into this action in order to invade Sinai. Finally, he added that Israel's request to deploy international forces along the Egyptian borders under the pretext of preventing arms smuggling for the Palestinian resistance was the best evidence of what he was saying. MB MP Kamal Nour Eddin called on all political trends to be united, saying that there was confusion among rulers and parliaments and that the peoples, through their unanimous stance, were the one who gave the resistance its strength. At the end of the convention, the participants staged a protest calling for a boycott on US and Israeli goods and criticizing the brutal attack on the Palestinian people.
