Dozens of Canadians are expected to be among thousands of other activists gathering in Egypt this week ahead of a global march to its Gaza border as they call for an end to Israel’s siege on the territory.
As many as 84 Canadians were set to travel to Egypt to be part of the civilian-led effort, dubbed the Global March to Gaza, to draw international attention to the crisis and demand the opening of a humanitarian corridor to allow unimpeded aid access to Palestinians amid warnings of famine and starvation.
Canadian organizer Tatiana Harker told CBC News that as of early Thursday afternoon, 50 of the roughly 80 Canadians have been allowed to enter amid reports of Egyptian authorities detaining and deporting activists involved in the planned march. So far, one Canadian was detained and questioned before he was denied entry with no reason given.
“We’re not expecting to breach the siege. We’re not expecting to breach the borders. We’re doing it in a [peaceful] humanitarian way,” Harker said.
Activists are expected to bus to Egypt’s coastal city of Al-Arish on Thursday after arriving in Cairo, where the following day they will begin a three-day trek, sleeping in tents along the way to the Rafah crossing. The roughly 48-kilometre walk is expected to take several days.
After reaching the Rafah area, they plan to camp there for roughly three more days before returning to Cairo, according to the coalition’s website, though it noted that much of their plans will depend on authorization from Egyptian officials.
At least 170 activists delayed, detained
Activists and attorneys told the Associated Press that airport detentions and deportations began Wednesday with no explicit reason given by Egyptian authorities to detainees.
March organizers said in a statement that they had received reports that at least 170 participants had been delayed or detained in Cairo. They said they had followed the protocols laid out by Egyptian authorities, met with them and urged them to let march participants into the country.
“We look forward to providing any additional information the Egyptian authorities require to ensure the march continues peacefully as planned to the Rafah border,” organizers said in a statement.
Harker, who is helping with coordinating Canadian travellers on the march, will remain in Canada. She said the organization had reached out to the federal government but did not hear back.
The organization said participants were made aware of all of the possible risks that they could encounter including being turned away from entering the country and being detained.
In a statement to CBC News Thursday, Global Affairs Canada said it advises Canadians to avoid all travel to the Governate of North Sinai in Egypt and to Gaza.
“Canadians who choose to travel to the region do so at their own risk,” it said.
Harker, a member of Palestine Vivra and representative of the Canadian delegation in this march, said the Montreal-based organization was overwhelmed by the amount of applicants with more than 700 people applying to be involved but only 84 applicants approved.
“We were expecting five Canadians in our delegation and we would have been happy. Because of logistics … we were not able to accept [everyone] willing to participate,” Harker told CBC News on Tuesday.
The planned march comes as a convoy of more than 1,000 people from the Maghreb, the Northwest African region, arrived in Libya on Tuesday awaiting permission to cross the eastern part of the country before heading toward Rafah.
Unclear if planned march will go ahead
Egypt had earlier warned that only those who received authorization would be allowed to travel the planned march route, acknowledging it had received “numerous requests and inquiries.”
“Egypt holds the right to take all necessary measures to preserve its national security, including the regulation of the entry and movement of individuals within its territory, especially in sensitive border areas,” its foreign ministry said in a statement on Wednesday.
Israel Katz, Israel’s defence minister, referred to the protestors as “jihadists” on Wednesday and called on Egypt to prevent them from reaching the border with Gaza. He said they “endanger the Egyptian regime and constitute a threat to all moderate Arab regimes in the region.”
Kelsey Lyseng, a registered nurse in Edmonton, said while she has made plans in hopes of reaching the Rafah crossing, there are no guarantees that the march will not face obstacles along the way.
“It’s such a tense situation. Escalation can happen at any point, whether that’s someone deciding that on the Egypt side or the Israeli side that this [march] is something they don’t want to happen and they escalate in terms of just stopping us and turning us back,” Lyseng told CBC News on Tuesday, ahead of her trip.
“As we’ve seen with the Freedom Flotilla, that’s a very real possibility.”
Earlier this week, Israeli forces seized the Madleen, a small aid ship, which was seeking to break a longstanding naval blockade of Gaza, and the 12-strong crew were brought to Israel before some were detained awaiting a court hearing on their legal status while others were deported back to their home countries.
The incident comes after earlier attempts of aid boats trying to break Israel’s naval blockade that has been imposed since 2007, and roughly one month after another ship bound for Gaza carrying humanitarian aid and activists was bombed by drones in international waters off Malta.
Desire to show solidarity, help on the ground
Lyseng said she has been saving for an opportunity to help in some way on the ground.
“I honestly have wanted to go physically since October 7th because I’ve known about the dehumanization of Palestinians for seven or eight years now,” she said.
The Hamas-led attacks on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killed more than 1,200 people while 251 were taken hostage, according to Israel. Israel says there are still 56 hostages held by Hamas, with fewer than half believed to be alive.
A Windsor Ont., couple is preparing to make the journey to the middle east to join a peaceful global protest to stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people. CBC’s Katerina Georgieva reports.
Israel’s campaign in Gaza has since killed nearly 55,000 Palestinians, more than half of them women and children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, and reduced much of the territory to a wasteland.
Lyseng, who works in a neonatal intensive care unit (NICU), said seeing images of malnourished children facing starvation and risk of famine is especially difficult for her.
“Seeing babies in their incubators, just skin and bones [or] seeing a child have their entire family’s house and all of their family members [killed] and he’s sitting on the roof crying, asking for mom or literally anybody and there’s no one for him,” she said.
“[Those scenes] stay in my memory forever as a moment of like, what the f–k are we doing? What are we doing as a society? What is the point of what we’re doing right now?”
‘Frustrated with the lack of action,’ Canadian says
Thomas Piekutowski, a retired resident of Montreal, says while his awareness for the Palestinian plight goes back decades, he sees Israel’s response to the Oct. 7 attack as “disproportionate.”
Piekutowski said he has participated in demonstrations in Montreal, signed petitions and written letter to elected officials urging the Canadian government to address Israel’s attacks on Gaza.
“I just feel very frustrated with the lack of action,” Piekutowski told CBC News ahead of his trip.
He says the latest actions taken by the Canadian government, including placing sanctions on two Israeli cabinet ministers who took part in promoting “extremist settler violence,” simply doesn’t go far enough to pressure Israel.
“I would like that to be so much pressure on [Israel] and that they start to feel the pain of economic sanctions and boycotts that they do decide to open the border.”
Activists to demand opening of humanitarian corridor
Israel controls the Rafah border in Gaza, severely controlling aid access into the enclave. It briefly reopened to Egypt earlier this year but shuttered after the total blockade began in March.
In less than two weeks after hearing about the march to Gaza, Piekutowski was preparing to head to Cairo to join the movement alongside other activists from all over the world.
“This current situation of starvation and death caused by lack of water, lack of food, lack of medications, it’s inhumane, it’s totally sickening and it’s wrong.”
The United Nations says 14,000 children are at risk of severe malnutrition over the next 11 months if critical aid doesn’t arrive.
Clarification: An earlier version of this video contained incorrect information from the UN regarding the timeline of that estimate.
Israel imposed a total blockade of all food or aid supplies reaching Gaza for roughly 11 weeks starting on March 2. which aid groups say has driven the population of more than two million to the brink of famine.
Over the past two weeks, Israel has allowed in limited food supplies largely distributed by a new Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. More than 110 people were killed and hundreds of others injured near aid distribution sites by either Israeli fire or unknown gunmen.
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