Pressing by Israel to block a caravan and a pro-palenin march on the way to Gaza, the Egyptian authorities arrested several foreigners on Wednesday, June 11 on Wednesday, June 11 at the Cairo airport and recalled that this type of demonstration was subject to a “prior authorization” on their part.
Israel demands that Egypt blocks the caravan Soumoud (“resistance” in Arabic), a convoy composed of Tunisian, Algerian, Moroccan and Mauritanian activists, on the way to the Gaza Strip, as well as an international march scheduled for the activists of June 19, 44 border countries.
“I hope that the Egyptian authorities avoid the arrival of jihadist protesters on the Israeli-Egipcia border and do not authorize them to participate in provocations or to try to enter the Gaza Strip,” said Israel Katz Israeli Minister Israel Katz in a statement.
Egypt “emphasizes that it is important to press Israel to lift the seat of the Gaza Strip and allow humanitarian access,” said the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Egypt in a statement. But he also stressed the need to comply with the procedures for “visits to foreign delegations that wish to express their support for the law of the Palestinians in the border area adjacent to Gaza”, which must obtain a “prior authorization.”
Arrests in Cairo
Several French who came to participate in Egypt in International March were arrested Wednesday at the Cairo airport, before being released, AFP learned one of them.
“Our passports gave us and freed us,” said a French traveler attached to AFP to the airport. “They arrested all the people who had European passports,” said the activist on anonymity. “There were 50 or even 60. There were even older people, mothers.”
According to him, some activists were selected for several hours, “sometimes from four in the morning.” “Some have been registered (…) and we saw their confiscated phones, others were expelled,” he continued.
Catherine Le Scoan-Quéré, spokesman for the French delegation, said during the day that several French citizens had been arrested at the airport or at their hotel, and that “a dozen French have been expelled.”
Some 4,000 activists from 44 countries have reserved flights for Cairo to participate in the caravan, according to Seif Abu Kishk, one of the organizers. The goal is to start from Cairo by bus to reach the city of Arish, in the north of Sinai, 344 km northwest of the capital, then gathering Rafah on foot, on the Egyptian side of the border with Gaza, “50 km to walk in three days.”
The arrival caravan is Wednesday in Tripoli
From Tunisia, the Souumoud caravan, composed of a dozen coaches and one hundred cars, arrived in Tripoli on Wednesday, the capital Libya, where it was received by an enthusiastic crowd.
The convoy hopes to explore the Eastern Libya, controlled by the forces of the powerful Marshal Khalifa Haftar rival of the government based in Tripoli, before entering Egypt whose authorities have not yet delivered to leave. Tripoli’s government prime minister Abdelhamid Dbeibah praised the “warm and united” welcome that the Libyans reserved for the convoy.
Souumoud’s convoy, Madleen Walking and Sailboat, who was intercepted Monday by Israeli authorities, have “common goals” but “are three different movements,” according to the organizers of the “global march.”
After 20 months of war, Israel faces a growing international pressure to authorize Gaza to compensate for generalized food shortages and basic needs.
Source: BFM TV
