on the Egyptian border, Israeli activists try to block humanitarian aid to Gaza

Around a hundred Israeli activists are outraged by the entry of aid into Gaza, while the Israeli army’s offensive continues.

It is a platform made of concrete blocks and triple layers of barbed wire, in an arid and dusty setting in the far south of the Hebrew state. Around a hundred Israeli activists are there. A huge screen door was closed a few minutes before, to applause.

Since the end of January, a handful of these Israeli activists have been outraged by the entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza. Everyone is convinced that it is 70% hijacked by Hamas. So they meet at Nitzana, on the Israeli-Egyptian border, where humanitarian trucks are inspected by Israel before entering Gaza. Their mere presence slows down the inspection of heavy goods vehicles and thus slows down the arrival of help. Franceinfo went to the site.

“We scan the convoys to check that nothing is coming in”

Rachel Touitou, 32, one of the organizers, uses a loudspeaker to explain, in French, the day’s action to the newcomers. “The truck comes through that portal from Egypt. They come here so we stand here. So there, we scan the humanitarian convoys to check that nothing is coming in, that what should not come in cannot enter. This is also why we are here today. These humanitarian convoys are literally taken hostage by Hamas.” she says.

UNRWA (the UN agency for Palestinian refugees) may deny and cite strict procedures in the delivery of aid, but this presupposed diversion is the shared feeling and the primary motivation of all these activists. Some drove hours to come to this gathering that looked like a giant picnic, with Israeli flags but also radical and uninhibited speeches.

David Ickowicz, 39, came from Beit Shemesh, near Jerusalem. “We are saying to Hamas: ‘Here, here is fuel, here is food, here is oil, do what you want and continue your crimes.’ But it would all be over in a matter of weeks if there was no more food or aid coming into Gaza. The war would be overhe said in English. This has been going on for months because the world keeps saying, ‘Send help, send help’.”

“The Americans did not provide aid to the Nazis, the Islamic State, or the Taliban”

What do these activists think of the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the highest court of the UN, which has demanded better delivery of humanitarian aid from Israel? For Michael Raskas, an American-Israeli who came for the eighth time, that is not the question. “The Americans did not provide aid to the Nazis in World War II, nor to the Islamic State, nor to the Taliban. Israel must not give aid to Hamas, and that is why we are there: to prevent it”, he snaps.

The starvation of civilians in the Gaza Strip would constitute a war crime, the NGO Human Rights Watch had already indicated at the end of last December.